They All Lived Story 13: Defiance of Fate
by LadyWordsmith
Summary: A Xing army is attacking Amestris! Worse, they are using alchemists! Amestris must "fight fire with fire" sending their own army, State Alchemists included, to the Eastern Front. What do the Xing want? The 'key to immortality' of course!
1. Chapter 1

Authors Note: I had this done yesterday morning, but the site wouldn't let me log in and post it! Well, since the site wouldn't let me upload this one as one big file either, everyone gets to enjoy the cliffhangers of having one of these stories of mine actually posted in chapters! Enjoy! wicked grin

* * *

**November 7****th****, 1940**

"I'm going to beat you!" Sara Elric shouted the challenge as she charged ahead down the pavement, feed pounding against the ground.

"No you won't!" Edward grinned, picking up speed and matching his thirteen year old daughter stride for stride as they ran. The house was only another hundred yards up the sidewalk and approaching fast.

In a matter of seconds they both hit the stairs and slapped palms against the door then leaned against it, panting and laughing.

"Darn it! A tie," Sara panted, looking up at him. "I thought I was finally going to win!"

"Good try, kiddo," Ed smirked. "But you'll have to do better than that. It was a good run though." He enjoyed their morning five mile runs almost as much as their sparring sessions. "Maybe next time."

"Yeah right," Sara blew a puff of air from her mouth that sent her bangs fluffing up out of her face. "Though I guess Maes' Dad was wrong."

"Roy? What did he say?" Ed asked curiously as he opened the door and let them both inside. He was so ready for a good hearty breakfast!

"Oh he said that now that you were past forty he was sure you'd slow down," she grinned, and Ed realized she was trying to get a rise out of him. He stuck out his hand and ruffled her hair. "Gah! Dad, stop that!"

"Call it revenge," Ed grinned.

"Sounds like you two had fun this morning," Winry's voice came from the living room. "Breakfast is ready. Get cleaned up if you want to join us!"

"Beat you to the bathroom!" Sara laughed, and darted upstairs at full speed.

"I think I'll just wash my hands in the kitchen and worry about that later," Ed chuckled as he entered the living room and walked over to where Aldon was setting the table and Winry was bringing out a steaming plate of bacon, eggs, and sweet toast. "It's easier than playing with lightning," he teased.

"She almost beat you, didn't she?" Winry smiled; a note of pride and amusement in her voice.

Ed nodded as he grabbed a towel off the basket of clean laundry waiting to go upstairs and walked into the kitchen. "It was close," he confirmed. He may be forty-one, but he hadn't slowed up any. Still, Sara was getting very good at matching him in some things. She couldn't beat him in a fight, but she was getting close at that too! "Some day soon she's going to."

"And you'll be the proudest father ever when it happens," Winry laughed. "I know you."

"I don't like getting beat," Ed pointed out as he washed up.

"You like to see her succeed," Winry countered. "And she doesn't like to lose any more than you do. She just keeps her temper in check better."

"Guilty as charged, and true on all counts," Ed smiled. Winry knew them both too well, and Sara had proven more and more to be 'Ed's daughter' as she got older, with a driven enthusiasm for everything she did that came from both parents, but her father's keen knack for problem solving and putting together complicated and disparate information. She had taken to alchemy like a bird to flight, and had boundless energy in her lithe little frame. Fortunately, she wasn't _quite_ as hot headed, given she certainly wasn't known for being tall either. Though she was taller than Ed had been, reaching five foot one already, when he still hadn't cleared five feet at that age!

Ed felt better for a quick wash. He'd shower after his stomach stopped growling! He came back into the living room and sat down at the table as he heard Sara's feet pounding back down the stairs. She had changed out of her sweatshirt into a tank top and, as happened often of late, Ed found himself startled by the fact his baby girl wasn't a kid anymore, but a young lady on the verge of turning into a woman.

No, that didn't make him feel old. Not in the slightest! Yeesh.

"This looks great Mom!" Sara grinned, filling her plate and, only out of having manners pounded into her by her mother, did she not start inhaling her food. It certainly wasn't something she had learned from Ed's example!

Aldon filled his plate as well, while Winry helped Ethan up onto his booster seat. The three year old was grinning broadly as he reached for the sweet toast. They had called it French toast on the other side of the Gate, but Ed and Winry hadn't wanted to explain 'France' to strangers, so they just called it sweet toast. "I want some!" he grinned. "Please, Mommy!"

"Just don't get too much syrup on your hand," Winry chuckled. "Wait a second." She pulled out a small glove and slipped it over Ethan's right hand. It covered his auto-mail fingers which, Ed and Winry had learned as soon as Ethan had been fitted with them right after he turned two, was necessary if they didn't want to spend all their time cleaning them out with all of the things small children got into! It didn't bother Ethan of course. As soon as Winry was done, he was grabbing a slice and reaching for the cup of syrup. "I want to pour it!"

Ed smiled as he watched. Despite his worries when his youngest had been born, Ethan had proven to be a very independent spirit; fearless and eager, exploratory, even more than Sara had been at that age. He was into everything he could manage, and while sometimes he knew it drove Winry a little nuts, it made Ed proud.

Aldon was definitely the quietest of the three. Not that it made their middle child any less precocious! He was ten now, and still often the calming balance to Sara's sometimes reckless enthusiasm. Their relationship, despite the larger age difference, often reminded Ed of Al and himself, though Aldon and Sara often had different interests. Aldon had showed little interest in his father's alchemy; at least, in learning it for himself. Aldon understood how it worked. He didn't want to design auto-mail like his mother either, but he spent a lot of time tinkering around with electronics and building things anyway. He had even helped Ed fix a few things around the house; simple projects, but he definitely had a good mind for mechanics design and implementation. Ed looked forward to seeing what Aldon was doing in a few years with his passion for invention.

"When you're done," Winry said to Ed as everyone ate, "Roy called. He wanted to know if you'd come over this afternoon. He wants to talk."

"Did he say what about?" Ed asked curiously between bites. He was glad it was a weekend, but he'd been hoping to spend most of it with the kids and Winry. They were planning a family vacation, and there was a lot left to decide on!

"Xing," Winry replied simply, a brief frown on her face. "He sounded concerned, but he wouldn't tell me why."

"Isn't Xing having a civil war?" Sara asked, looking up from her plate. "Teacher was telling us about it in class yesterday."

Ed nodded. "That's right. We haven't had contact with their government in months. Maybe he's finally heard something." Why he'd want to talk to Ed about it, he didn't know, but he had a feeling it couldn't be good. Still, he shrugged casually and went back to eating. "I guess I'll go over and see what he wants."

"Daaad!" Maes Mustang called out as he closed the door behind Ed. "He's here!"

"Thanks for the announcement, twerp," Ed laughed, ruffling Maes' hair. It got the same reaction out of Mustang's dark haired son that it did out of Sara.

"Hey, stop that!" Maes ducked away, smoothing his hair and looking up at him with an annoyed scowl. He was only eleven and the same height as Sara already. Eventually, he'd be taller than Ed, who was going to enjoy the fact that the kids were smaller than he was for as long as possible!

Really, Maes and Sara were best friends and often joined at the hip when they were together. Ed actually got along pretty well with Roy's son most of the time. He just enjoyed tweaking the kid sometimes. "All right," he chuckled. "How's the alchemy coming?"

At the mention of his favorite activity, Maes' eyes lit up. "Awesome!" he grinned broadly, an eager expression that looked almost out of place on a face that was almost an exact replica of his father's. "I made this yesterday," he turned to the side table in the Mustang entry way and picked up a very simple sculpture of a rose, but it was made of steel. "I made it for Mom; a rose that can't wilt!"

Ed smiled. "I'm sure she loved it too." Even Riza would appreciate something like that.

"Edward." Roy nodded as he came down the stairs from the second floor. Suddenly, Ed's happy-go-lucky Saturday seemed duller; Roy was frowning seriously. "I'm glad you're here."

"Well you sure don't look it," Ed chuckled then dropped the humor. "What's going on?"

"In here," Roy gestured to his private study. It was his home office and alchemy lab. "Maes, your mother wants you to finish putting up your clothes."

"Yes, Father," Maes sighed, setting down the rose. "Are we still going to play ball later?"

Roy paused, looking a little stung, and nodded. "Of course," he smiled. Then he disappeared inside.

Ed followed him and closed the door. The room was fairly large in reality, not that anyone could tell. The walls were lined with bookshelves, counters, and a desk. The variety of knick-knacks, experiments, and other things often found in an alchemist's lab were evident, as well as paperwork that apparently even Roy couldn't always escape at home. Over the years, Ed had become much more sympathetic to the difficulty of Roy's life choices. "So, what's this about Xing?" he asked.

Roy didn't turn back to him immediately, going over to the small bar in the room and pulling out a bottle and two glasses. Adding ice, he poured drinks. "They're invading."

What? Ed couldn't have heard that right! "Invading?"

Roy nodded, turning around with two glasses in hand. "I got a call from Breda this morning. There's a Xing force that's appeared on the Eastern border in the desert. They're heavily armed, and they're making ultimatums."

Ed's stomach sank; an invasion force. "This is ludicrous," he replied. "Months without word from their government, turmoil and civil war going on over there for years, and suddenly we're being invaded?!" Suddenly, he knew why Roy had called him over and his mood darkened further. "You want to send _me_ to deal with this."

Roy held out one of the glasses. Ed took it, still glaring, and sniffed; it was a good brandy. Roy looked like he regretted what he was going to say next, but that didn't improve Ed's mood. "It's not a decision I came to lightly, Ed. I'm sure you know that. But yes, we need you." Not I, but we: Amestris. Roy had probably already talked to members of the Assembly.

"So get someone who doesn't have a wife and three kids," Ed retorted. He hated war, and while he didn't mind a good fight and defending his homeland, he wasn't going to just harry off and disrupt their lives.

Roy looked angry, then –was that embarrassment? He took a long sip from his glass then met Ed's eyes again, looking worried. "I'm not ordering you to go, Ed. I'm begging."

Begging? Roy Mustang? That caught Ed a little off guard. "You have plenty of other Generals."

Roy sighed. "I'm not asking you to go because you're a General. We're mobilizing the State Alchemists."

"You're what? Are you insane?" Ed nearly dropped his glass, his hand shaking in anger. Mobilizing: this wasn't 'keeping the peace.'

"They… they're using alchemy, Ed." Roy's voice was little more than a whisper.

This was getting ridiculous! "But Xing alchemy is based in medicine, in healing!"

Roy scowled, his mouth twisted into an ironic grimace. "Apparently, for this, they're willing to subvert that."

"But what do they want?" None of this made sense! Why attack Amestris? What could Xing possibly hope to gain? Up until recently, they had been peaceful!

"The key to immortality."

A proverbial rock landed in Ed's stomach. "The Stone? They want the damned Philosopher's Stone!" What the hell?!

"Calm down, Ed," Roy finished off his drink. Clearly this was not something he had decided easily.

Ed nodded and drained his own drink in one long swallow. This was absolutely crazy! "We're not going to give them that information are we?"

"Of course not," Roy scowled, clearly insulted. Good, at least he was still Roy! "We've already told them we refuse to negotiate or offer them that kind of information. We don't have it."

"How did they respond?" Ed asked.

"They said if we didn't provide them with the key to immortality they would start attacking our border towns. It seems like an act of desperation of some kind really, but we don't know why they so desperately want it; and it's not clear that they even know 'what' they're looking for."

"So who's going to lead the defensive?" Ed asked. Obviously, if he was being invoked specifically as a State Alchemist, it wouldn't be him. Really, that was a good idea. Ed's specialty was not large unit tactics, though he could manage in a pinch.

"I'm putting Breda in charge," Roy replied, turning back to the counter and refilling his glass. "More?"

Ed shook his head; one was enough. He needed his wits about him. How was he ever going to explain this to Winry and the kids? "Breda's good for this," he agreed.

"You will be in charge of the Alchemists," Roy continued. "Havoc will go along as Breda's second in command."

Ed noted, but did not comment on the fact that he was the only family man in the bunch. Okay that wasn't entirely fair. Breda was engaged, but Nancy had been married until her last husband died, and her son was fully grown. It wasn't quite the same. "Sounds like quite the party," he forced a dry chuckle.

"Should be," Roy nodded, leaning back against his desk. "Believe me, if I had the option, I'd go myself."

"I know." It had to be driving Roy crazy that he couldn't go and take care of the problem personally. As much as he had delegated over the years, this was where he was most at home; doing something directly about problems. And now, as had become custom, when Roy couldn't deal with it personally thanks to politics and positioning, he sent in Edward. Ed wasn't sure if he should feel honored or used, probably both. "When do you want us ready to move out?"

He hoped his family would forgive him.

"What is Roy thinking sending you into a war zone?" Winry asked, angry and stunned at the same time. She was still having trouble absorbing Ed's news. "Mobilizing the alchemists! Has he completely forgotten Ishbal?" she snapped, annoyed with herself as much as the situation as tears stung her eyes. Even though she had forgiven Roy Mustang for killing her parents all those years ago on orders, that didn't mean she approved of using the alchemists this way. Even if they were being invaded, all using alchemists could do was lead to more deaths!

"Of course not," Ed put his hands firmly around her upper arms, making her look at him. "We're going in to trump them and end this before it has a chance to turn into a long drawn out conflict." His expression said clearly that he was frustrated and angry too, but he had already accepted. He was going to go no matter what she said; just the way it always was when Ed felt he had something he 'had' to do. "We're there to take out their big artillery, destroy supply lines, anything we can do more effectively that frees up regular soldiers elsewhere. Disrupt their lines the way we did in Drachma, and deal with their alchemists if we come up against them directly."

There was something in his eyes though that made Winry not entirely believe him. "And what about 'be thou for the people?" she asked, perhaps too harshly.

Ed winced but he didn't look away. "If we have to kill Xing soldiers to keep them from coming into the heart of the country, we'll do it Winry. We can't let them get a foothold here, or all we'll do is lose more lives. This isn't slaughtering innocents; they're invading 'us.' They've already started killing innocent people. I can't let them get away with that."

"Why you?" Winry asked, already knowing the answer.

"Because Roy can't, and better me than Alphonse," Ed replied flatly. "Because I can make the decision to kill soldiers and live with it and because 'these' kinds of tactics I'm good at

All good reasons, though the last two made Winry flinch. No, she couldn't see Alphonse giving offensive orders to kill. He would do it, but Ed had dealt with those issues inside himself long ago. "How long?" she finally asked softly.

"I don't know," Ed admitted then, pulling her tightly into a hug. "Longer than we'd like I'm sure. Probably at least a couple of months unless we get lucky in the first couple of engagements and scare them off. But they don't seem like they'll scare that easily. A desperate enemy never does."

The kids didn't like the news either, not that Winry had expected them to.

"Will you get shot at?" Ethan asked later that evening as he sat curled up on Ed's lap. Winry had made a pot of hot chocolate and served it before Ed broke the news.

"Probably," Ed nodded, but he grinned. "Don't worry though. They'll probably miss. They usually do. That or they always end up hitting me in the auto-mail. That doesn't hurt."

"Okay," Ethan seemed mollified.

Sara was frowning. "It's been a long time since they used alchemists in a war."

"This is why we teach combat alchemy and fighting at HQ," Ed explained. "It's not just physical conditioning, Sara. You know that. Sometimes you 'have' to fight, and that's when you don't have time to train anymore."

"When do you have to leave?" Aldon asked, looking worried.

"Soon," Ed replied. "As soon as I get orders and we have a ship-out date, but probably in the next couple of days."

Winry's throat tightened again, as it had at various moments all evening. She had to tell herself that Ed had survived combat situations before, and he would be fine. But her head supplies too many images of Ed injured after his duel with the Ice Alchemist, Ed in the hospital after the Lab 5 incident, Ed sitting in her living room missing auto-mail limbs, all the way back to the suit of armor that was Al holding a badly bleeding Edward on that fateful rainy night. She shook her head and forced those memories away. They weren't helping! "We'll have to make sure he's packed and ready okay?" she smiled encouragingly.

"Right," Sara nodded, looking serious. "You can't forget something important!"

Ed reached out in a gesture for a hug, and Sara and Aldon crowded in against him and Ethan. "I'm leaving everything that's really important right here," he replied as he squeezed them all tightly. "Where you're safe. That way," he smiled, but he was looking past the kids at Winry, "I have to come back."

**November 22****nd****, 1940**

Getting the alchemists mobilized was no small task. Ed had been asked to hand pick two squads who would be going to the front; thirty alchemists in all, not counting Edward and Armstrong who would be the ranking officers in each of the two squads. Roy had made it clear that Alphonse would be staying behind on this one; a decision Al disliked, but that relieved Ed. For once, he was glad his brother wasn't going to be coming on a mission with him. Someone needed to keep the training program going, and Ed was better suited for combat. It was for that reason that Ed had also told Miriam Golan to stay behind and assist. Marcus and Matthias – the other two Ms – he wanted on his personal squad. They had worked together for years now, and he trusted them with his life.

They had traveled with the rest of the deployed troops by train, and then by military truck convoy out to the Eastern desert. It was hot, even this time of year; very hot. Ed had honestly forgotten just what it was like to have the heat beating down around him, day after day, and while it got cooler at night, it was still uncomfortable.

"We've gotten soft," Havoc joked as he, Breda, and Ed stood inside the small room of the Eastern outpost that would now be their Base Command. It was nothing more than a rectangular concrete building with very few windows, and a single door on the western wall. Soldiers had assembled a map table, desks, and anything else they might need, and made sure the radios were working. Havoc was leaning against the wall, trying to look relaxed in uniform as he dripped with sweat. "You want one?" He offered a cigarette to the others as he pulled his ever present pack of out of his pocket.

Breda just shook his head, paying no attention as he was already analyzing the map and looking at the reports they had been given. He was sweating worse than Ed and Havoc, but he didn't seem to be thinking about it.

"No thanks," Ed grimaced. "You know I don't smoke." Neither did Breda.

"Pity," Havoc chuckled. "You might be less spastic."

"What was that?" Ed glared at him.

Havoc just stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. "See what I mean, Chief?"

"Enough," Breda said, mopping his face with a handkerchief. "It's too hot for arguing."

"I can't argue with that," Havoc replied glibly.

"Ah well," Breda sighed with some resignation. "Nancy wanted me to lose a few pounds before the wedding anyway. The heat may do it for me."

Two days, they had been here just two days, but the time it had taken them all to arrive had been a couple of weeks. The local contingent from Eastern Command had been holding out as best they could; but it wasn't nearly enough. The war had already begun. "So where do you want us?" Ed asked, walking up beside Breda.

On the map, he could see how far the line of the Xing army extended. He knew the empire was huge, but the number of men marked on the map was staggering compared to what they'd dealt with in Drachma! Yet he had the sinking feeling it wasn't anywhere close to the full army of Xing. All of the villages nearby had been evacuated already; fleeing the artillery of Xing and its soldiers.

It seemed like far too much trouble to go through for something like the Stone. But obviously only the Amestrians knew that.

"I'd say take your alchemists here, Elric," Breda tapped a point to the left flank of the Xing line, North of their current position. Then he tapped a point on the right, further South. "Have Armstrong position his men here. The flanks are less solid, and if we can break them fast, we can send them crying home." Armstrong was outside preparing their own troops for deployment out to the front lines as soon as Ed came out with orders.

Ed liked that idea. The faster they were gone, the faster he and the rest of his men and women – all alchemists that, at this point, he had trained personally or trained with – could return home. The faces of Winry and the kids as they'd hugged him goodbye at the train station were etched in his mind. He had a picture in his pocket, a recent family portrait that was only a few months old. They looked so happy. He didn't want that to change. "We'll be in position within two days."

**December 20****th****, 1940**

The war was not over as fast as they wanted; not even close. While Mustang tried to negotiate with the head of the army in front of them, with minimal success, the invasion continued, and the Amestrian line was doing all it could just to hold at the edge of the desert. As long as they kept refusing to give them the Stone, or any other way to make someone immortal, there was little negotiating that could 'be' done. So the fighting continued, day after day. More troops came from Southern Headquarters and Central, but the Xing lines had come prepared to pick a fight and sustain it, and having already entrenched, they had someplace to press from. The Amestrian army was playing 'catch up' and stuck on the defensive.

Their only useful offensive weapons were the alchemists. Edward and Armstrong and their squads pressed on the flanks, doing their best to make them break and moving in to take out their major artillery at every opportunity. Often they came up against enemy alchemists which, to Ed's disgruntled suspicion, were almost too easy to take out. It was obvious that their training was not in combat, and they only saw one or two. After the first week, there were no more reports of alchemy used against the Amestrian lines directly. That didn't mean they weren't dealing with their efforts however. The Xing artillery was alchemically enhanced in ways that Amestrian often was, but also in a few that Ed wasn't familiar with. Their accuracy with the 'big' guns was uncanny, and deadly.

Roy ordered the alchemists to push their attacks against the long-range artillery and 'take it out.' That meant not only getting up on the front lines, but getting right up into – and sometimes behind – the Xing lines in the middle of combat. The Xing never retreated, they never left their lines anything less than heavily guarded. They had the men for it, and that meant the Amestrians could do little to break through except in the chaos.

Finally, near the end of a particularly grueling day of combat, the pressure along the flank seemed to work, and some of the Xing infantry pulled back behind one of their artillery embankments before digging in again and continuing to fire. They never seemed to run out of ammunition either. It was a chance to take the thing out that they just couldn't pass up.

"How do they just keep coming?" Matthias commented to Ed as they huddled behind a solid wall Ed had brought up out of the sand. He had used it to avoid a Xing mortar that had made a huge crater in the sand just beyond them. The sun beat down on their heads from a cloudless washed-out blue sky. The ball of the sun above them was white.

"Must be hotter in Xing," Ed panted. "They're used to it." After a month, he was getting pretty used to it himself; the heat, the sand and grit getting into every pore, every crevice of his clothes, his hair constantly plastered to his head. Fighting in this was a real pain in the ass! "All right!" he called to any of his men who could hear him, scattered along the line as they were, most hiding behind walls like his. "Form up and let's take out those guns!" The Xing had explosions down to a science, and their damned 'canons' showed it! They looked like older models than what Amestris had, but that meant little in a combat situation. The one firing at them was a very tempting target. Working in groups, the alchemists had managed to take out three already over the course of the entire war so far, as well as defending the front lines from the attacking troops. The orders Ed had were to keep to the defensive as much as possible, but if they had to take people out to end this, then take them down. So far, they hadn't had to do that… much. He tried not to think about the climbing body count for every day the war continued.

Ed had winced, but he knew what it was costing Roy to say that to him at all. The Assembly was already upset, and the public wouldn't understand why they didn't just give Xing what they wanted to get them to go away! There was no way they could fully understand what was being asked. The higher-ups in Central had to be taking a lot of flack for this, even as people rallied to chase Xing out!

There was a brief break as the alchemically enhanced canon paused. Reloading probably. Good. "Move!" Ed bellowed, and charged out from behind the wall, dodging general gunfire as best he could as he shot across the sand, the sun beating down mercilessly on his head. Matthias was right behind him. Coming in from various points, he could see other alchemists making their way at top speed in pairs – the strike team he had put together out of the alchemists he had thought best suited for _real_ combat. Most of them were his own trainees, a few were alchemists who had previously seen combat, in Drachma, or even as far back as Ishbal.

It was almost a surprise when he reached the artillery piece, leapt over the berm of sand set up to protect it, and slid into the deep indention beyond that actually dropped down a good ten feet! Matthias skidded down behind him, and Ed spun to deal with any Xing soldiers manning the canon. He stopped dead, staring at the weaponry.

There were no soldiers! The canon was completely abandoned. "What's this about?" he scrambled up onto the thing, looking for any signs of soldiers in hiding. Could they fire it remotely using alchemy? That would be difficult, especially without rather specialized trained alchemists.

The other alchemists in his squad started jumping over the edge, and then Ed cursed when he saw someone follow them over he hadn't been expecting.

"Havoc, what the hell are you doing here?" he glared down at the Colonel, who looked like he'd rather be just about anywhere else!

"Surviving," Havoc panted. Breda had him coordinating things on this flank for the past couple of weeks. The Colonel had handled it well, but had been lucky not to get sucked up in the fighting, until today apparently. "My cover got blown, literally!"

"Great." Ed said aloud, though he cursed softly under his breath, glad Winry wasn't there. She'd be appalled by the language, but it seemed most appropriate in situations like this one! He looked under the canon, and then blanched. In front of him, a bomb was ticking! "Shit!" He scrambled backwards. "Bomb! It's a set-up!" he turned and headed back down to the other alchemists gathering, slipping in the loose sand. They looked up at him in surprise. "Retreat!" he yelled. "It's going to–"

Ed never got to finish the statement. Apparently Xing had decided that their artillery was expendable if it took out enemy alchemists – the bomb blew, and Ed felt himself slamming into the sand, skidding, the abrasive grit cutting skin and then digging into those cuts, a concussive shove that knocked the air out of his lungs…and everything went black.

**December 21****st****, 1940**

"Damn it!" Roy Mustang slammed his fist into his desk, making everything on it jump. "Tell me this is a joke, Feury!" he growled. This was not happening!

Feury looked surprisingly calm in the face of Roy's outburst. Perhaps he had been expecting it. He just shook his head. "I'm sorry, Sir. But that's what Breda sent." He gestured to the paperwork in Mustang's hands.

Roy straightened out the crumpled paper and looked at it again. It hadn't changed. Edward's entire squad of alchemists had been ambushed and was now missing in action, along with Colonel Jean Havoc! Major General Breda was not pleased; in fact, he was pretty worried. Not that the paper said as much, but Roy knew Breda. Behind the official report, he was probably cursing himself for the loss of half their alchemists, his second in command, and two of his best friends in one incident.

Loss: how cold a word that was. They didn't know if Edward and Jean and the others were dead. Chances were, given what had happened, and how desperate the Xing were to get their hands on something that would grant eternal life, they could well be captured and held hostage. Not that being prisoners of war was necessarily better than a quick death, but Roy hoped that might be the case. If it were, he had confidence that they'd get out of it. Ed didn't die easily, and neither did the men and women he had trained. Roy only hoped that the lot of them weren't just dead, slaughtered in one brilliantly 'failed' attack.

"You're dismissed Feury," Roy dropped into his chair. "Let me know as soon as we hear something more definitive."

"Yes, Sir," Feury ducked back out.

Roy's eye went to the phone on his desk. There was a phone call he should make, but he really didn't want to. Besides, he wasn't entirely sure who he should call first in this instance. With a sigh, he picked up the phone and reluctantly dialed Alphonse's office number. He was too much of a coward, he thought to himself as he did so, to call Winry first.


	2. Chapter 2

**December 22nd****, 1940**

The first break in dark oblivion was the throbbing of his head. Ed cracked one eye open, then the other, blinking a few times in the dim light. _Where in bloody hell am I? _It didn't matter yet, he hurt. Slowly it came to him: the battle, the bomb, tumbling into unconsciousness. He tried to speak, but all that came out at first was a low groan through parched, dry lips.

"Nice to see you awake, Chief."

Ed blinked, and tried to twist around. That was Havoc's voice! He was stopped suddenly, and it took him a minute to realize why he couldn't move. Both of his auto-mail limbs were missing! "Damn." His arm was chained to the wall, and his remaining leg chained to the floor. The room was made of stone; the shackles looked old, but they felt solid enough. He cursed again, his choice of words much less tame.

"Really getting into this soldier thing aren't you," Havoc's voice cracked sarcastically, though he sounded mildly amused. "Cursing, getting captured; what's next; whoring and drinking?"

"Shut up, Jean," Ed snapped. He tried twisting again, and finally managed to see Jean Havoc, chained to the same wall to his left, though he looked like he had a little more mobility. "Why do you get to move?" In truth, Havoc didn't look any better than he felt.

"I didn't manage to kick a Xing officer in the balls with only one of my legs while half conscious," Havoc smirked.

Great, Ed didn't even remember that! "How long was I out?" He had no concept of time at the moment, and that seemed desperately important for some reason his brain didn't want to supply.

"A couple of days," Havoc replied. "They kept you and the other alchemists unconscious as best they could. I guess they're afraid you're good at your jobs."

"Right." Ed closed his eyes. Even the dim light was making his head throb worse. "Well they know what they're doing. Where're my limbs, and the other alchemists?"

"Don't know," Havoc sighed. "They took your arm and leg with them. I think the others are nearby. There are cells all through down here and you can hear them opening and closing other doors when they come through."

"Where are we?" Ed had to figure out a plan. Sure he couldn't do alchemy without both arms, and he couldn't draw anything chained to a wall, but he could still think.

"Best I can tell, some ruins in the desert," Havoc replied, his tone more serious. "Looks like our 'friends' here appropriated it for a base. It's a lot closer than Xing certainly."

"We've got to get out of here," Ed scowled, looking up at the ceiling.

"Better to wait it out," Havoc sighed. "Be cooperative and patient. Mustang'll be negotiating for our release I'm sure. You don't think he'll leave half his prized alchemists to be tortured as prisoners of war do you?"

"Tortured?" Ed twitched; then cursed again as the chain holding his arm rubbed where it was apparently already a little raw on his wrist. That thought honestly hadn't occurred to him. "What could they want from us?"

Havoc gave him an 'oh come on' look. "You're an alchemist right? And what are they after?"

"The Ph- the key to eternal life," if they were listening, he wasn't about to give something critical away! "Or Immortality, whatever they call it."

"And who better to ask?" Havoc's eyes were sadly serious; it was a strange expression on the man.

Damn it! Ed wiggled, trying to get a little more circulation into his arm and find a slightly more comfortable position; but there was almost nothing he could really do. "So," he sighed finally. "Do they feed us around here?" After two days unconscious, he was starving! He looked around the cell, getting a better feel for his surroundings. They were in a small stone room. A pile of ripped and ragged material in the corner looked to be a good portion of his and Havoc's uniforms, no doubt gone through in detail. Ed's watch was almost assuredly gone. The door was in front of him, about ten feet past the end of his leg. The light appeared to be all natural, so they couldn't be too far 'underground,' if they were at all. It was day right now.

"Every twelve hours," Havoc replied. "Or at least, that's about how far I can tell it so far. Shouldn't be too much longer actually. They have oil lamps or something in the hall when it gets dark," he added.

Not that Ed had any idea how he was supposed to eat without any free limbs. "Can you move at all?" he asked Havoc.

The other man nodded. "My hands are cuffed, but they only chained down my legs so I can't stand up. Too bad they took my cigarettes too. I'm dying for a smoke."

Ed rolled his eyes. "Ah, they're doing you a favor. Those things'll kill you."

"And being tortured to death won't?" Havoc retorted, smirking as he sagged against the stone wall behind them. "Don't you have _any_ real vices, Ed?"

Ed snorted. "I thought I had enough personality flaws! Do I need some other vice too?" People complained about him enough as it was.

"Yes," Havoc exclaimed. "You're so predictable sometimes, and yet such an anomaly in the military."

"How so?" Ed asked. This wasn't a conversation he'd ever had with Havoc, despite the years they had known each other. He liked the man well enough; Havoc was laid back most of the time, except when it mattered, and good at what he did. Still, he'd razzed Ed for years about his attitude, his lifestyle, his experiences or lack there-of.

"Well, first off, no one ever pegged _you_ for a career man," Havoc commented dryly. "When you came back, I was sure you and Al would turn down any offer Roy made cold. You're just not a soldier, Ed."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Ed snapped at him. He was not in the mood for criticism or analysis at this point. He wanted out of here! Maybe entombing him in here with Havoc was supposed to be a form of Xing torture. If so, it might be the most effective way of tormenting someone he had yet encountered! Only being locked in here with Roy Mustang himself could probably be worse.

"Cool off, Chief," Havoc chuckled. "You're a warrior sure; one hell of a fighter, an unparalleled alchemist, and a crack shot too," he seemed to find the last one amusing. "You're a warrior, but you're not a soldier. You never take orders without understanding them; you take no joy in a job well done if it means people died, and you almost never indulge your baser instincts."

The last one annoyed Ed. "So I'm not a chain-smoking, womanizing drunk. There's something wrong with that in the military?"

Havoc started laughing at him. "Only from the common soldier's point of view. You're almost the ideal officer as far as the higher-ups are concerned. Think about it: hero of Amestris, the Fullmetal Alchemist, family man; a guy who spends his weekends with the kids and then charges into danger and pulls off the impossible on a regular basis. But from the folks on the ground, well… you've had personal experience there too now, haven't you?"

"Twice," Ed replied, sighing. "Drachma."

"Oh right," Havoc nodded. "I remember that now; something about you getting shot up in a fight up there early on protecting the troops. Yeah, you really got the favor of the common soldier with that one. Still, that tends to lend itself to legend later. It's been what, over fifteen years? None of the men out here know you or me from any other brass."

He made some interesting points. Ed had purposefully avoided developing bad habits as much as possible in his life. Mostly cause the 'good ones' were likely to hurt his performance, or were just plain disgusting. No alchemist worth his salt could get away without fully understanding exactly what comprised the alcohol and cigarettes and other things people sometimes consumed or indulged in for pleasure. Frankly, Ed valued every breath he took, and every functioning organ he had! Izumi's training had ingrained in him too much respect for his body to do anything that was likely to do permanent damage. It was the primary reason he didn't drink unreasonably most of the time. "And it would make you feel better if you knew I was a little more human?"

"I guess that's about right," Havoc shrugged. "I don't suppose you've had any torrid romances or hidden tattoos no one knows about? Any bastard kids hidden away?" He grinned leeringly.

"No!" Ed felt his face flush, and hoped the light was too dim to show it. "There's never been a girl other than Winry, and I'm afraid of needles." Izumi had tattooed the Crest on her collar bone. Ed didn't have a problem with the idea of tattoos, but the needles made him shudder at the mere thought!

"Well at least that's something," Havoc chuckled tiredly.

"I drink," Ed shrugged after a few seconds of quiet.

"Well duh," Havoc snorted. "I've seen you drink, Elric. You might as well drink tea. I've never seen you really plastered."

"Not often," Ed agreed. He doubted anyone at HQ who knew him personally had seen him actually drunk except Alphonse. "But sometimes there are times when it helps me think, or deal. Usually it just makes me think too much unless I have enough to pass out." Why did he feel like a teenager again; admitting transgressions that really, now, didn't even count as such? It was frustrating! Damned Havoc. "What's with all this chatting anyway?"

"It's been lonely talking to myself," Havoc laughed.

The door in front of them creaked, and Ed heard the lock click. They both stopped talking.

A Xing soldier stepped into the room, looked at them coolly, and dropped a tin plate on the ground between them. It held Xing food – normally one of Ed's favorites – but this was clearly the soldier version, or worse. There were half-cooked noodles, and a couple of pieces of sick looking vegetables; definitely worse. The soldier turned and headed for the door.

"Hey!" Ed called after him. "There are two of us awake in here! Doesn't that mean something?"

The soldier turned and laughed at them. "Sure," he said in heavily accented Amestrian. "You can share." Then he was gone. The door locked again behind him.

"You're a lousy host you ass!" Ed bellowed, straining against the chains in annoyance and shouting insults until the footsteps faded away. He fell back against the wall then, tired. Sighing, Ed looked at the pathetic amount of food on the plate. There was barely enough there for one man's lean pickings, let alone two. Ed couldn't even reach for it, not with his arm gone. "You eat first," he said finally.

Havoc chuckled and shook his head, picking up the chopsticks lying in the noodles. "I've had food," he replied. "You can have your half first, if you don't mind being hand fed."

"For food, I'll suffer the indignity," Ed retorted, opening his mouth as Havoc brought the sticks to his mouth with noodles hanging from them. Even lousy and, as it turned out cold, food was better than starvation.

The bastards were going to pay for this as soon as Ed figured out how to get lose and get himself and his men out of here!

**December 26****th****, 1940**

Four days of sharing half servings and water with Havoc was making Ed more than a little irritable. The fact that the Xing soldiers hadn't taken them out of the cell, not even to relieve themselves, was not helping matters either. The place was starting to smell, and Ed simply tried not to think about the state of his clothes. He was starving, he could barely feel his arm anymore, and every muscle hurt from being held in an unnatural position.

He was sure it was all meant to soften them up: or at least, him. Havoc could still sort-of move after all. He kept up a stream of general chatter when they were alone too. Apparently Havoc liked sitting still about as much as Ed did.

The longer they were there, the more Ed realized that getting out of here on their own was going to be nearly impossible, unless the other alchemists had found a way to plan a prison break. Assuming, of course, that they were still alive. Though that seemed reasonable enough for now; given what Xing was after. Not that Ed planned to cooperate, and he knew none of the men or women in his squad – there were three female alchemists in his, and two more in Armstrong's – would be any more likely to say anything. Fortunately for most of them, at least Ed hoped it was fortunate, they really didn't know how the making was done. Most of them just knew the critical history.

It was halfway roughly between the meals Ed sarcastically called breakfast and dinner when the door clicked unexpectedly; interrupting Havoc's rather half-hearted attempts at singing a Cretan opera he had heard once. Ed's ears hurt from the suffering!

The Xing man and woman who entered were not soldiers. At least, the garments they wore were not the uniforms Ed had grown used to seeing. They were much more flowing and formal; more colorful and decorated in painted lettering that he couldn't read, but the patterns reminded him of transmutation circles and text. Then he noticed that the woman was holding something small, silver, and familiar in her hand: his watch! "That's stolen property," Ed glared at them both. "Give it back."

Neither of them laughed, though the woman smirked just slightly. "I do not think so," she replied in a soft voice that was surprisingly melodic; it belied the look on her face; it was too sweet. "We are no fools, Edward Elric. None of your 'soldiers' have been allowed to keep these. None of you will be using alchemy while you are here."

"Your President Mustang is being most uncooperative," the man smirked, speaking in a perfectly reasonable, measured tone, despite the expression that he found Ed little better than a dog serving his master. "Our leader hopes that you will be more intelligent, and more reasonable."

Ed snorted. "Sure, Mustang's an ass," he replied, "But don't think I'm going to sell out just because it's not the cushiest hotel I've stayed in." He smirked back, ignoring his head, the pains in his arm. He wished he didn't smell like his own crap though. It ruined his feeling of smug superiority. "I could hang out here all day."

"We've noticed," the man replied. "That is why we are here. Our leader wishes to speak with you personally. If you change your mind and talk with him, than we are prepared to offer you something a little more to your tastes."

"Sounds nice," Havoc chuckled just out of Ed's view. "Will there be girls?"

Both of them flatly ignored him. "Will you speak with him?" the man asked.

Ed sighed. "Sure, why not." After all, what was the worst they could do? He'd already said no.

Ed was escorted – more like carried, since they had no intention of giving him his limbs back – down the hall where he was taken into a crude bath area. They dumped water over him and let him change out of his thoroughly disgusting uniform pants into a clean pair of rather worn Xing style pants that were clearly cast offs from some soldier. Still, it felt good to be mildly cleaner.

"Don't thank us," the woman sniffed distastefully. "Our leader does not like to be offended."

"Then he's in for a treat," Ed smirked darkly. This was going to be interesting.

They took him to another plain, stone room – the place was full of them – and set Ed in a chair, chaining his free arm to it behind his back. "Just out of caution," the woman said softly as she clicked the lock.

"And here I thought you were afraid of me," Ed retorted.

"Not afraid, Edward Elric," came a more commanding voice from the doorway. "We simply know better than to under-estimate you."

The man who stepped into the room was dressed as a general might be, except in the Xing style, and with a cut and style to his clothes that implied he was, Ed had learned to tell in the past, of noble blood of some kind. Not that it meant a whole lot in Xing right now…unless you were vying for the Emperor's throne. His clothing was dramatically cut, and brightly colored in red, black, and gold.

Ed felt something click into place in his mind and he blinked at the dark haired man. He looked strangely familiar. "Have we met?"

"In passing," the man nodded, grinning, though there was little humor in it. He looked tired, worn down. Not overtly physically tired – but Ed had learned to read beneath the outer appearance. It was in his subtle movements, and his tone, his eyes. Despite his bearing, there was something broken about him. "At a diplomatic interchange in your Capitol once; I am Lin Yao."

Ed remembered him then. The man was about his age, aiming for the throne of Xing – he'd made that no secret really, wasn't everyone? – And he was a jovial sort who came as close as anyone Ed had ever met to out-eating him.

But this Lin did not remind him much of that one. Apparently the years of politics and turmoil, the civil war, had worn on him and ground him down. Apparently too, it had brought him to a measure this desperate. What he had not gotten from Edward and the rest of Amestris in conversation in his younger days, he was now apparently here to take by force. "Long time no see," Ed commented simply.

Lin laughed, but it was a hollow sound. "Indeed. I could really use your help, Edward. The Emperor still seeks the key to immortality, though few believe that he will still grant the person who finds it his throne."

"Then why are you here?" Ed glared at him; the brief memories gone.

Lin smiled; a dark expression that seemed slightly menacing. Perhaps he was a little mad now too? And not angry mad either. "I plan to use it for myself; and take the throne, end this civil war and restore peace to Xing."

"Noble," Ed shook his head, "and foolish. What you want can't do the things you think it can."

"Don't tell me that," Lin strode back and forth irritably in front of him. "I've heard the stories. Your brother's body restored to him, stories of bizarre travels. Surely the way to immortality lies in Amestris, in your strange alchemy and your not-so mythological Stone."

So he already knew something of the Stone. This really was madness. Ed shook his head again. "I'm not giving you anything, Lin," he replied. "I'm telling you what you're asking for will destroy Xing, not save it."

"You know nothing about Xing," Lin paused in mid-stride, a sword flashing out of its scabbard and stopping just under Ed's chin, the tip to his throat before he could blink! "Of the war that's tearing it apart from the inside, or the millions of deaths brought about by the Emperor by setting this foolish quest in the first place!"

"But I know something about alchemy, and about war," Ed returned, speaking carefully. The point of that thing was sharp! "This benefits no one and in the end, no matter what you do you're not going to find what you're looking for in Amestris. We don't have it. War only begets more war."

"So give me what I want, and it'll be over," Lin sneered, any friendliness vanishing in moments.

"Not a chance."

"Fine," Lin turned and headed back to the door, taking his sword with him. "Convince him," he waved a hand at Ed's two escorts without looking back.

"And how do you expect to do that?" Ed asked, smirking confidently. He didn't feel confident at all, but he wasn't about to show any signs of weakening.

The woman smiled sweetly. It was creepy. "We have our ways."

**January 1****st****, 1941**

Ed's new companions were alchemists; alchemists, doctors and now… his tormentors. After Lin had left them, Ed had found himself, for the first time in his life, subjected to _real_ physical torture. It was crude to start, and relatively unimaginative, but painful; he'd been whipped fifty times before being returned to his cell. The next day, he had been poked and prodded with a variety of sharp implements. He had winced, and gritted his teeth, and refused to utter so much as a whimper of protest. When they demanded he speak; it was with casual insults and condemnation.

Ed couldn't fight back physically, but he did verbally. "You call yourselves alchemists! This is a perversion of everything your country believes about alchemy _and_ mine!"

They never seemed to get mad, and it bugged him. Of course, that was probably on purpose. They tried a variety of ways to break him physically; hot pokers, physical beatings that left him with a busted lip and an eye that swelled up till he couldn't see out of it. He had no way of knowing if the other alchemists were getting this treatment, but he expected they were getting something similar. He hoped that when the enemy figured out only Ed knew anything of real value, they would leave the rest of the alchemists alone.

Ed thought he was good at dealing with physical pain. After all, he was used to the agony that came whenever he had his auto-mail limbs reattached. He had been cut, gouged, stabbed, shot at, and hit with more alchemical attacks than he cared to remember. He knew pain; he was good at ignoring it, moving beyond it, and fighting back.

But he was used to 'fighting back.' Here, he wasn't given the opportunity. They locked him down to a table or to the wall when they tortured him. This was no fair fight; it was completely one sided…and it was a level of pain he had never known, because he never knew when it was going to stop. The whip had been an agony as he made himself count the strokes, just to keep focused on something. The hot pokers seared until he could smell his own flesh burning; a singularly frightening and disgusting smell that made him want to vomit. At the end of each session, he made himself spit in their faces, or make some sarcastic remark. He never said a word about the Stone, or anything else useful.

"How do you make a Philosopher's Stone?" the man asked. He was usually the one who asked the questions. The woman seemed to delight in torturing him.

"Go to hell!" Ed grimaced as alchemy-created sparks of electricity went off along his spine.

"Is there any other way to grant immortality?"

Ed refused to say a word, and was rewarded with a burning sensation 'under' his skin that felt like they were removing it from the inside out! He grimaced, and bit down until he tasted blood in his mouth.

"How do we make your government give us this information?"

The litany went on and on, over and over. The questions rarely varied and the list was fairly short. Ed quickly got sick of the broken-record routine!

What made it all the more ludicrous, was the fact that his two torturers, whose names he had not learned, would make sure to treat the wounds they inflicted to keep them from becoming infected!

In the long periods between sessions, Ed lay in his cell, chained up in the same position, listening to Havoc talk about all sorts of inane topics, or chiding him for what Havoc considers Ed's 'flaws.'

"Havoc?"

"What is it, Chief?"

"You know I really hate milk right?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So this idea of yours of mixing milk into alcohol is making me nauseous!"

"So you prefer your drinks straight."

"I prefer them without milk."

**January 7****th****, 1941**

Alphonse dreaded having to tell the family the news. Two weeks since Ed's alchemists had vanished; and now this. At least, he thought, it was mildly better than having to tell everyone that Ed was dead. He left HQ with a feeling that was a mix of dread and relief.

"Prisoners?" Winry looked upset and furious all at once when he announced it in Gracia's living room that evening. They were all there for dinner; not an uncommon occurrence lately. "Two weeks for them to bother informing us that they have _sixteen men _as prisoners of war?!"

"Fifteen alchemists, Jean Havoc, and over two dozen infantry," Alphonse corrected. He understood Winry's anger, but he couldn't forget the more than twenty-four other people that had been captured. Even if they were regular infantry, they were people! Only because it was Ed did he forgive Winry's statement.

Elicia looked equally horrified. "Are they going to return them?" she asked.

"Only if the government turns over the 'key to immortality,'" Al grimaced, using their phrase. "But even the Assembly is behind Mustang in the fact that we can't just give Xing information on the Stone."

"That would be a disaster," Gracia agreed as she brought in a tray bearing drinks: mostly milk or tea.

"But Dad's alive right?" Sara asked, the thirteen year old looking between the adults like they were all nuts. "Why don't they rescue them? Or why don't we just give them some other answer and don't tell them it's not the one they're looking for? Certainly State Alchemists are that creative!" she exclaimed at the last.

"It's not that easy, baby." It was Winry who spoke, her voice surprisingly soft and sad. "Just because we know they're alive, doesn't mean we know where they are. And they have alchemists too." She had the right of it, Al thought bitterly. Getting that far behind enemy lines to 'find' the captured men was going to prove difficult. So far, it had only been alchemists who could break through their lines at all! Half of that man power was now missing.

"So, what are they going to do?" Sara asked, looking desperately for an answer, her tone demanding one; eyes flashing. Al tried not to look away. She looked so much like Ed when she did that it made his heart ache.

"They're going to try negotiating alternate means for their release," Al explained. "The Xing gave us one week to make a decision. You can bet they're going to do everything they can to get Ed and the others back. If we're lucky, they'll find out where they are and rescue them before that." It wasn't quite a lie; he'd left it with maybes. Still, Al didn't think Sara believed it anymore than the adults did. The situation didn't look good, and Al didn't want to think about the realities of what might happen if they couldn't rescue the alchemists before that deadline was up.

'_If I'd gone with you, Ed, would you still be in this mess?'_

**January 14****th****, 1941**

The Amestrian government managed a negotiation for the partial release of the Xing captured prisoners of war. In exchange for their own captured soldiers, the Xing army released the captured infantrymen, but refused to release the alchemists, or Colonel Havoc. The exchange was made during a brief cease-fire in the morning, and the rest of the day was quiet. Amestris refused to come to the table with a further offer, refusing to give up any alchemical information and continuing to insist that they did not have the 'key to immortality.' That much was truth of course; even the Philosopher's Stone could not truly grant immortality.

The bombardments of the Eastern towns of the country continued, while Major General Breda's soldiers fought to keep the Xing from moving further into the country's interior. It was a hard, bloody battle; and the fighting showed no signs of ending any time soon.

**January 15****th****, 1941**

Roy Mustang was sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the documents he should have been poring frantically over. He hadn't slept well in weeks, had been fighting with the Assembly over negotiation options, and all he really wanted right now was a good stiff drink, a week of sleep, and to be out on the front lines blasting the Xing back across the desert and out of his country! He found images of gigantic fireballs and sandstorms very satisfying.

Beyond the door to his office, he heard a commotion, followed moments later by a knock on his door. "Come in," he barked sharply. He wasn't in the mood to deal with anything else right now. Breda's reports were getting progressively more depressing as time went on.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Sir." It was Feury again. It seemed like lately no one save him or Riza would brave Roy's office. The younger staff members were all terrified of him right now. "Miss Elric would like to speak with you."

That brought Roy's mouth closed on the reflexive 'I'm too busy' he had been about to give. His heart sank. "'_Miss' _Elric?"

Fuery nodded. "Yes, Sir. It's Sara."

Which meant, if Roy had his guess, that Edward's fiery little girl was not happy about yesterday's news. "Let her in, Kain." He might as well get the abuse over with.

"If you say so," Feury closed the door. A moment later it burst open again and Sara Elric crossed his office in a way that was so startlingly like Ed that Roy felt a surprising pain inside, a stab of sorrow, as she slammed her hands down on the edge of his desk and glared at him across it. It was the blue eyes that reminded him he wasn't seeing things.

"What the heck do you think you're doing?" Sara yelled with a force that startled Roy. He'd known her for her whole life, and while she was sometimes temperamental and often opinionated, he had never seen her furious. Normally, she had more control. Clearly, the fact that her father was a POW was affecting her. "You're just going to leave all those alchemists and Colonel Havoc behind? Let them stay captured in the hands of the enemy? What if they're torturing them?"

Roy bit his tongue, and glared at her. "Welcome to my office," he replied sarcastically. "Nice to see you, Miss Elric. Please, tell me your great plan for ending this war that the government of Amestris has obviously missed?" The comment about torture hit too close to home; Roy had no illusions about what might be happening to get information out of captured alchemists, given what Xing was after.

Sara stopped, her mouth still wide open, caught off guard. Then she glared at him and, surprisingly actually, she didn't apologize. "Why don't you tell me why you're letting your best friends die?"

"All right, kid," Roy stood up, scowling down at her. "That's going too far. Now if you've come here with a valid comment, let's hear it. If you're just here to insult me I'll call security and have you escorted home. I'm sure your mother will be thrilled."

Sara blanched, and Roy knew he'd made his point. At dinner, or picnics, or birthday parties, he was Roy Mustang, Maes' father and a family friend. Here, he was President Mustang, and she had better not forget it. "Yes, Sir," she replied, swallowing, but not backing down. "I want to go, Sir. I want you to send me to the front, to assist with defense of Amestris."

That…was not what Roy had been expecting to hear. "No," he replied immediately. He didn't even have to consider it.

"But why not?" Sara exclaimed. "I'm a trained alchemist! I've been working with Dad for years now and I'm good! I can fight, and I know defense. I can fix weapons and medical tools and trucks and all sorts of things the regular soldiers might need too!"

"No, Sara."

"Is this because I'm not a State Alchemist?" Sara asked sharply, but Roy could see the tears forming on the edge of her eyes. Crying was also not something he had ever seen the girl do. "I'm almost fourteen! Dad was barely twelve when he passed the State exam! I'm not a little kid, and if you want, I'll demonstrate for you right now that I'm good enough!"

"Go home, Miss Elric." Roy honestly hated to hurt her, but it was the best thing he could do right now. She didn't know what she was asking.

"Not until you tell me why you won't send me when you need all the alchemists you can get?!" Sara retorted.

Roy sighed. "Because your father would never forgive me."

That seemed to deflate Sara right there. She seemed on the verge of saying something else, but Roy could almost see her thought processes as she realized that Roy really wasn't going to give her a chance, no matter how unfair she thought it was, and that, no, the last thing Edward would have approved of either was her charging off into a war zone. "Yes, President Mustang," she said finally. "Thank you for taking the time to speak with me…Sir."

Roy softened, just a little. "We're doing everything we can to find him, Sara. You'll just have to trust the professionals to do their jobs." And hope that they weren't too late.


	3. Chapter 3

**January 19****th****, 1941**

Edward had already lost track of the days. On top of the physical torments, they had tried starving him even further, though eventually they'd had to return to giving him something. As Ed had expected, they wanted him alive. They needed him alive. If he died, any bargaining power they had, or chance at the Stone, was gone.

He lost track of time almost completely when they started messing with the schedule, and messing with his mind. They came to get him at odd hours, and the lengths and variety of torture sessions started to change. Sometimes they were surprisingly short, only a half hour or so, and one had lasted for, at least Ed guessed, about four! Once, they had come to get him and just left him sitting, waiting in a room for a couple of hours before they dragged him back and chained him up without doing anything. It infuriated him! They woke him up in the middle of the night, or took him in the middle of meal time; anything to catch him off guard, to humiliate him and break him down. They started stripping him naked for all his sessions.

They applied their tortures to areas that Ed considered more than inhumane. It was a good thing they'd taken his leg, he thought ironically after one session that had involved sharp needles, his inner thighs, and his most personal parts – at least that way, they were having to carry him anyway. If not, they probably would have made him walk!

The needles were bad enough down there, the day they traced patterns on the soft flesh and organs between his thighs with the ends of long hot metal rods was pure agony. Ed gritted his teeth until he thought he might chip them against each other, and closed his eyes, willing himself not to let so much as a tear fall even as they welled uncontrolled in his eyes. He made himself focus 'through' the pain, to be detached, to try and study it as he had the rest. But it was an agonizing exercise. He didn't dare move for fear that he might cause them to slip and damage something they didn't actually mean to, and he really had no interest in becoming a eunuch!

"Winry must be something in bed," Havoc commented after that one, when Ed was once more chained in his cell, pants on. That was almost worst, since they chafed against the damaged area that had been cleaned and sterilized with antiseptic to avoid infection; having rubbing alcohol swabbed on that area had made him whimper despite clenched teeth! His eyes were damp, but not a tear escaped.

Ed frowned, but didn't open his eyes. "How do you figure that?" He was too pained now most of the time to deal with Havoc's banter; he just let it roll over him most of the time, unless Havoc provoked conversation, like now. They had taken Havoc a few times too, and he had come back beaten and bruised, but it seemed to be mostly cosmetic. Havoc certainly insisted it was. But they seemed to do it more to annoy Ed than anything else. Havoc didn't have anything useful.

"Oh c'mon, Chief," Havoc joked hoarsely. "With a body like hers?"

"Have you been ogling my wife, Colonel?" Fine, he could play. It was better than thinking about what he had just endured.

"Who hasn't?" Havoc replied. Ed could practically 'hear' him smirking. He knew Havoc was trying to provoke him, to get him riled, to keep him from sinking into the nothingness and depression he would have liked to wallow in if he'd had the energy. It was Havoc's own twisted way of keeping Ed's spirits up. The funny part was, usually it worked. "Besides," Havoc sniggered. "I figure if she's hot enough you're so hooked you've gotten her pregnant three times, there's got to be some serious woman under those clothes." Well that was interesting logic.

"Oh she's serious all right," Ed choked out. His neck hurt. Earlier, they had used a rope across his neck to pin him down. But he couldn't let the comment go without reply! "More woman than you could ever hope to handle."

Havoc just chuckled.

**January 20****th****, 1941  
**

Roy was getting very tired of commotions outside his office. After Sara, there had been a never ending stream of Assembly-men, Generals, and a variety of people coming in and out that had business with him, or complaints, for days on end. They never seemed to leave him alone. He was beginning to think that stocking hard liquor in his office might not be such a bad idea.

"Who is it this time, Feury?" he asked the shorter man when Kain peeked in for the twentieth time that day. At least the work day was almost over and he could escape home soon. Then they could only call him to harass him!

"Who do you think?" Winry shoved through the door right past the man, her face no less angry than Sara's had been a few days before, if not more so. She shoved a note up under his nose. "Is this your doing, Roy?"

"What do you mean?" Roy snatched the paper and looked down. In relatively scrawled printing, there was a handwritten note.

_**Mom,**_

_**I'm going East. I can't stay home and not help out with the war effort. My alchemy can help people. I took the money for a ticket on the train out of my savings. I'll pay it back when I get home. **_

_**Don't be mad at Aldon. I didn't tell him I was going.**_

_**Sorry,**_

_**Sara **_

Roy felt his mouth go dry, and his good eye widened. "I told her I wouldn't send her," he replied softly, not looking up into Winry's tear-streaked, furious face. "I told her she couldn't go, and that Ed would never forgive me if I did."

A small sob from above him finally made him look up. The anger was gone, and Winry was physically shaking, her voice broken with unshed tears "She was gone when I got home from work," she said, wiping her eyes with the back of one hand. "And she…she took Ed's jacket with her."

"She what?" Roy knew Ed had purposefully, despite going to the lines as an alchemist, insisted all of his men and women wear only their uniforms to keep them from standing out compared to the other soldiers. It was war; it was appropriate, and it was cautious. Edward had left his more distinctive look, the one identified with the 'Fullmetal Alchemist' at home.

Winry nodded. "I'm scared, Roy. I went to the train station, but no one there recognized her description. A train left at noon though." It was a good bet she had been on it.

"I'll send out an alert for everyone to keep an eye out for her," Roy sighed. "I'm sorry, Winry, but there's not much else I can do. I can't spare any other men. Hopefully the police will find her"

"I hope so," Winry replied. "It's bad enough that Edward is in their hands. I can't stand the idea that something might happen to them both."

Roy could think of nothing consoling to say. He felt like a real heel though. As was often the case, these situations were mostly his fault.

**January 24****th****, 1941**

Hunger and thirst had become abstract concepts; they were a constant. Ed's stomach was so far beyond empty that it had stopped growling, and his mouth tasted like tongue and stomach acid. His head ached all the time now, and his limbs the same. His wounds, while not infected, were not treated gently, and a thousand little cuts and pokes and prods and bruises were taking their toll. Ed thought he could count them all as he lay there if he wanted to. In fact, for morbid amusement, he often did. In some places though, they blended together until they might as well be one big bruise.

Havoc talked less now; saving his own strength. They treated the wounds they inflicted on Havoc too, but he was taking quite a pounding, Ed had been assured, on Edward's behalf. They had started to take him more, and they talked often about the things they were doing to some of the other alchemists, though they never said who, or how many.

"I can't really crack," Havoc told him with a brave smirk one time. "Even if I started babbling like a coward, I don't know anything useful. Don't give up, Ed. The cavalry will be here before we know it."

That didn't make bearing their torments any easier.

The newest torment was one of the cruelest, Ed thought. They had started denying them water entirely. As of yesterday, the only drink left for them was a bottle of a rather horrendously cheap brew of the rice wine that the Xing were fond of. Ed knew what the good stuff tasted like; and this wasn't it! It didn't help that he wasn't overly fond of the flavor to begin with.

Ed held out as long as he could manage. He needed his wits about him. He couldn't crack, couldn't give them what they wanted, no matter how reasonable it was beginning to seem- which was his clue that they were wearing him down, little by little. He couldn't consider that.

But he couldn't die of dehydration either. "Havoc," he coughed.

"What do you want? I'm not that kinda girl."

"Not funny." Ed didn't have the energy in him to make a further sarcastic comment. "I need a drink."

"I drank it all."

"Liar."

"I thought you had principles."

"Damn you to hell, Havoc." Ed was sick of the sarcasm; so sick of it.

"So you're a religious man now."

"Hand it over!"

The rice wine was truly disgusting, no quality, it might as well have been a bottle of sterilizing alcohol. But it was wet, and it dulled the pain.

**January 26****th****, 1941**

Sara got changed in Youswell. The train stopped there, and from there, she had to catch a ride out to the front. Fortunately, she had a little money, and she was able to pay for it.

She tried not to look nervous as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her Uncle Alphonse had once adopted her father's look as a sign of respect and brotherly affection. Her father looked intimidating and kind of dashing in it. Sara had no clue what she would look like in her father's image.

She stood in front of the mirror in the little bathroom at the train station, looking at her own reflection and forcing herself not to bite her lip, or do anything else so childish. She was almost fourteen! She wasn't a kid; she was an alchemist. And she was on a mission.

People had always commented that, aside from her mother's eyes, Sara looked an awful lot like her father. With her hair braided back and her father's coat on over her own black pants and a black tank top, the resemblance was uncanny, save for the budding figure she had that made it rather clear, with the coat off anyway, that she was definitely not a boy! With the coat on… well, okay, she still couldn't pass for a boy, but that wasn't the point. It was a pretty good look, she thought.

"Thank you!" she said when jumped out of the car hours later. She had managed to get a ride in to the war zone. Her small pack in hand, she was ready to walk the rest of the way.

"Be careful," the man at the wheel waved and continued on. He was delivering supplies on down the line from the train.

"I will!" Or at least, Sara certainly intended to! That didn't mean she didn't know she was walking into danger.

It was a half hour of walking before she reached 'Base Command.' By then, she was already tired of the heat. She simply walked onto the base and, by amazing luck alone probably, made it halfway to the primary building before a soldier stepped in her path. She gasped, looking up, fearful of being shot on accident. Why hadn't she thought of that earlier?! Her eyes widened as she found herself looking into a familiar broad face.

Major General Heymans Breda stared down at one of the last people he had expected to see. His aides stood behind him, looking confused as he snorted. "Sara Elric? You nearly gave me a heart attack! What are you doing out here girl, and in that get up?"

Sara took a deep breath, and found her strength. "I'm here to assist you, Major General, Sir," she saluted sharply. "My father trained me as an alchemist, Sir. I want to do my part." Given how often she had seen him at parties in her own back yard, he wondered if Breda would even take her seriously.

Breda looked slightly nonplussed, and sighed. "Come to my office. We'll talk where it's cooler." He turned and strode away as if he just expected her to follow.

Confused, and a little worried, Sara did just that. As she got a good look at the activity going on around her – soldiers marching, moving supplies, heading out to the front, and some coming back, dirty, gritty, several wounded – she felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. In the face of reality, what could a small girl really do to save her father and end a war?

Breda escorted her into his office, dismissed his aides, and closed the door. Sighing again, he went over and poured two large iced glasses of something brown. He held one out to Sara, who looked at it until Breda snorted. "It's iced tea."

"Oh." Sara felt foolish. Of course Breda wouldn't have offered her anything inappropriate! Besides, it was the middle of the day and he was certainly on duty. "Thank you." She took a sip, and grimaced, but drank it anyway. She liked her tea with lemon, and lots of sugar; this was plain and slightly bitter. At least it was cold and wet!

Breda – Major General she had to keep reminding herself, they weren't at home – dropped heavily into his chair and gave her a frustrated but considering look. "Does your mother know you're here?" It struck her then that this was the first time she had ever seen Breda in full uniform, and buttoned. For some reason that, more than anything else, brought to her the severity of the situation.

"Probably, Sir," Sara replied, swallowing. "I left her a message."

"Just what is it you think you can do here, kid?"

"I told you," Sara said. "I want to help. I'm an alchemist. I know I'm not experienced in this kind of combat, but I can fix weapons, and vehicles, and tents, and anything else that needs it. And I do know a lot of Dad's defensive tactics." She wasn't sure if she should admit that last or not, or if it would make a difference, but it couldn't really hurt her cause at this point.

Breda continued to look at her like he wanted nothing more than to put her on the next car home. Then he sighed and shook his head. "Mustang's gonna kill me later. All right, kid. Consider yourself drafted."

"As an alchemist?" Sara's eyes widened hopefully.

"As a soldier," Breda countered. "I can't afford to send even one man to make sure you get home, and if I send you off and you don't get home, Mustang'll have both our heads. Winry may kill me anyway. But you're safer here, and if you're here, I know you're not on the front lines." The look in his eyes told her that he knew what she had likely originally intended.

Sara sighed and nodded. "Yes, General Breda." She couldn't back out now! She didn't want to.

"For as long as you're here, consider yourself a Private in the Amestris military, temporary field commission," Breda said, looking tired. "Report to the supply tents, Private Elric. There are a lot of weapons that need repair."

Sara gulped down the last of her tea and stood, saluting again. "Yes, Sir."

"Foreman," Breda called out, and one of his aides, a 1st lieutenant, stepped in. He was tall and good looking, but very serious. "Please take Private Elric here to the supply tents and give her into Major Smith's care. She's an alchemist, and she's going to be repairing anything we have that needs fixing."

"Yes, Sir." Foreman looked at her with an inquisitive and slightly amused look that got her back up a little. He would learn to take her seriously soon enough! "Come along, Private."

Maybe he really wasn't so cute after all, Sara thought as she followed the smirking Lieutenant back out of Breda's office into the oppressive heat.

**February 2****nd****, 1941**

Ed couldn't help the gasp of pain that came as they tossed him back into his cell once more; his recently dislocated –and relocated- shoulder striking the stone floor hard. "Damn you!" It wasn't creative, but it was better than nothing. At least his face landed on clean wet stone. They did clean out the cells from time to time. Apparently their captors had standards.

"You should give up," the woman said sweetly in that voice that really grated on Edward's frazzled nerves. She hauled him up against the wall with strength that had surprised him the first time she man-handled him, and locked him back into place. "We have offered you more than your fair share of opportunities to do so. We even…asked nicely."

"Didn't anyone tell you…?" Ed choked out, "I have lousy manners."

The woman stood. "So I have learned." She turned to go. As it always seemed, Ed could see the chain of his watch hanging out of her pocket.

"Just…one…thing," Ed gasped out. Today's session had involved horrible smoke that he had been forced to inhale, and it made him cough; his throat burned and his lungs ached.

"What's that?" she turned, looking at him curiously. Ed never made requests.

"Please….what day is it?" He didn't know. He had no idea how long he'd held on. It could be weeks, or it could have been half a year for all he really knew now.

The woman seemed briefly startled then chuckled. "Food, water, salves, so many things more pressing, and you wish to know the date. Very well then, I will be kind, and grant your request." She pulled Ed's watch out of her pocket, and flipped it open as if consulting it; for show as far as Ed could tell. It wasn't as if it told the date. "It is the second of February," she replied, then closed the watch and it disappeared into the folds of her robes once more. Then she left without another word.

As the door clicked shut, Ed heard Havoc move. "You could have asked for something better," Havoc groused. "More food or something."

At least they had given up on the alcohol in place of water idea. All they had accomplished was making Ed more stubborn and less cooperative. Or he'd been numbed enough that he barely responded to torture. Though he'd felt it doubly afterwards, he hadn't let them see that. All he had left was his pride, and his word; he would give up neither.

But the date had taken him a little aback. He leaned back against the cold stone wall, felt it slowly numbing his pains, and a tear ran silently down the dusty grit on his cheek. It was followed by several more.

"Hey?" Havoc's tone took on real concern. "What the hell did she do to you?" In all the time they'd been there, Ed hadn't actually cried once.

Ed licked swollen, cracked lips, and sighed. "Yesterday was Winry's and my sixteenth wedding anniversary. Today is Sara's fourteenth birthday. Tomorrow… is my forty-second." The impact of what he was missing made him feel like the world was laughing cruelly. It was sadly ironic that he would happen to ask today, in the midst of what was normally one of the happiest times he spent with his family.

"Hell." Havoc didn't say anything else in the stretch of time before they both drifted off into unconsciousness.

**February 13****th****, 1941**

The war was not going well. Sara didn't need to be sitting in General Breda's office or the command center to know that. She listened to the soldiers as they spoke around her, sometimes to her, as she worked; and she worked! Breda hadn't been kidding. Anything that needed fixing that wasn't complicated machinery, they brought to her. She reformed broken rifle barrels, recycled canon shells by making them good as new, fixed busted truck tires and bumpers, tears in tents, bent or torn items of all sorts. It was a lot of work, and it took a lot of energy out there in the heat. By the end of each day, she usually collapsed onto her cot in the tent that housed the female soldiers and passed out, sleeping fairly solidly until morning.

A lot of them laughed at her the first week, several called her an Officer's brat, and many, many of them made jokes about her height, her size, and her clothing. Breda didn't make her change though, and had even told her new superior to let her keep it on. It wasn't like they had a uniform in her size anyway. Her birthday passed without comment. She spent the day in the dust, helping change oil on the trucks and fixing broken weapons.

Slowly though, as she worked from sun up to sun down, Sara found the comments coming less often and by the end of the second week she was invited to sit with some of the infantry at dinner by one of the women who bunked near her and worked in supply.

"You're gutsy, kid," one of the Sergeants laughed as Sara tucked into her food that evening. "Coming all the way out here. Crazy, but you've got guts. This isn't exactly the safest place to be, especially not for a little girl like you."

"I'm fourteen," Sara replied defensively, bristling until her friend, Corporal Lina Doran, put a hand on her shoulder. "I can handle myself, thanks."

"Relax, Elric. Bors just likes to rile folks." Lina glared at the Sergeant, who smirked.

"I heard we might see combat here soon," one of the other Privates commented seriously, pushing military issue glasses up his nose. His name was Franz Heimler. He was eighteen, and he had the cutest dark hair and big brown eyes. He hardly looked like a soldier; but Sara had heard him tell stories of the battlefield as well. "The line was pushed back again today, and I heard General Breda called for a retreat back to the fallback point." From seeing the map once or twice running errands, Sara knew that was a point about ten miles into Amestris itself, and only five miles out from Base Command. The front was no longer long and spread out; the Xing had concentrated to avoid being flanked and were pushing inward with renewed force. Suddenly the rest of the war seemed much closer.

Sergeant Bors nodded, suddenly more solemn. "That's what I heard as well. Be ready men…and women," he added, grinning at Lina and Sara. "You may get a chance to test your skills in combat more than you expected defending the back ranks."

**February 15****th****, 1941**

It was almost noon two days later when the war arrived at Base Command. The retreat had turned into a rout, and in a last ditch attempt to keep things from falling apart, Breda called for a full retreat to the Base itself, reforming the line just in front of it in a full out attempt to defend the position and hold the border. The base was set at the bottom of the pass in the mountains that extended down from the North. It was far out of Xing's way to try going around; the mountains extended all the way down the Eastern side of Amestris, only getting smaller until they were gone south of Resembool.

Sara was in the middle of helping repair a busted truck when the air suddenly filled with a high whining siren she had never heard. "What's that?" she yelled at the Private 2nd Class who was under the hood as he jumped out.

"Warning sirens!" he bellowed. "Get under cover, kid! The war's here." He was running towards the sound of the sirens, just like almost every other soldier in the place. Most of them were grabbing their weapons. Only those with different jobs did otherwise.

Then the munitions started falling; the Xing canon she had heard so much about; aimed projectiles that exploded on impact, only these were more effective than traditional canon shot or even machine guns, and more deadly. As something exploded nearby, tossing her to the ground, Sara scrambled, rolled, and got to her feet, running frantically towards the closest building: the command center.

The normally busy dusty lot between her and the command center was rapidly emptying of soldiers assembling on the lines, but it was more dangerous in some ways for what it still held as patches of ground around her exploded with concussive force as death fell from the sky.

She could do this, she had to do this! Sara forced herself to breathe and ran as fast as she could, as if she was racing her father, and they were back home, and the front door of the command center was suddenly the door to their house, and she was moving and –

- Wham! She smacked into the door and sailed through it into the command center, where she staggered and nearly fell into someone. Startled, she looked up into the face of Private Heimler. "Franz, I'm sorry I…"

"It's all right," he pushed past her in a hurry, then paused and smiled back. "I'm glad you're safe." Then he was back to work, running out the door in a rush.

Sara felt her face flush slightly, than shook her head. Stupid girl! Crushing on a soldier in the middle of a war zone; was she an idiot? She hurried into the command room, where Breda and his aides, including General Alex Armstrong, another familiar face, were talking animatedly around the strategy table.

"I have only seven of us fit for battle," Armstrong was saying. "If we can get around to either flank, perhaps we can do something."

Breda was shaking his head. "We need to defend here; if we lose this position, they're walking into the interior with nothing to stop them from capturing the railroad and going straight to Central. How many would you need to successfully take out the rest of that artillery?" he tapped the point on the map where the Xing canons were apparently firing from.

"All of us," Armstrong sighed. "But that leaves no one to defend the Base itself, and that seems an unacceptable risk to me."

Sara wasn't sure if she had the best timing in the world or the worst; either way, it felt like her father's luck. "Excuse me, Sirs," she spoke up, having to talk a little louder than she intended to be heard over the conversation.

They stopped and looked up at her. Armstrong's eyes went wide in recognition. "Sara Elric! What are you doing here?" he looked at Breda suspiciously. Obviously the Strong Arm Alchemist had not been informed of her presence.

Breda sighed. "She snuck out here. I figured it was safer to keep her here than let her run around unsupervised." He looked at Sara. "What do you need, Private?"

At least they weren't just dismissing her. Sara would take her slightly favored position as Edward Elric's daughter for everything it was worth if it meant she could help. "I want to offer my services in defense of the Base," she replied, trying not to sound too eager, but probably failing. "I know I can't accompany General Armstrong into the field, but I _know_ defensive alchemy, and I know how to fight if…if I need to." She didn't know how to fire a gun, but she could handle hand to hand. Still, she was constantly being made more and more aware of how many things she hadn't considered before coming out here.

"What do you think?" Breda looked at Armstrong. "You're the alchemist."

Sara looked at him hopefully. She knew Armstrong better than Breda actually. He'd been teaching with her father for so many years now, and had known Edward since he was only a little older than Sara was now. "I know all the techniques Dad's been teaching in defensive alchemy," she said, standing as tall as she could. "And you've seen me fight, Sir." She'd gone with Ed once or twice to work, and he'd let her spar with a couple of the other alchemists; though most of her fights were with Uncle Al or her Dad. She had mostly watched, but it was something.

"How quickly can you transmute?" Armstrong asked her warily.

Sara couldn't help the cocky grin that spread across her face as she pulled a pair of gloves out of her pocket. Her father had helped her work up the best transmutation circle for her work; and while she had been doing it the traditional way for fixing things, she was glad he had allowed her to get them made. He had said it was a sign that she was good enough that she wouldn't be handicapped in a dangerous situation if she didn't have time to pull them on. She pulled the gloves onto her hands and held them up to display the circles stitched into the palms. "How fast would you like, Sir?"

Armstrong sighed, but nodded. "Breda, I recommend you take Miss Elric up on her offer. She is, indeed, a talented alchemist, and at least as stubborn and determined as her father." His eyes showed a hint of sadness that Sara chose to ignore.

"I'd noticed," Breda rolled his eyes. "All right, Private. We'll see what you're made of I guess."

As it turned out, they saw only too well.

Armstrong and what remained of his squad were delayed in their attempt to take out the rest of Xing's heavy artillery. They got pinned down in an outcropping of rocks under suppression fire; meanwhile, the Base was getting shelled into the ground, and the line of soldiers began to shift, and then in one spot, in the midst of the soldiers fighting not far off, their line broke, and it turned into another full rout.

At least as far as Sara could tell. She stood outside the building, manipulating the air around them, using it to shove falling shot away or even bring electric blasts to shatter it before it hit the ground. It was exhausting work; she had never had to do so much alchemy in a short period, not while running and dodging here and there to avoid getting killed! She was soon bathed in sweat in the heat, but she didn't have time to think. Something smacked Sara in the face, and she tasted blood as it ran down into her mouth, but she kept going. There wasn't time to worry. If she was still standing, she would be fine.

Then the broken lines were all the way back onto the base itself, and Sara found herself in the middle of actual combat! She froze a moment, unsure what to do until a hand on her shoulder brought her out of her revelation.

It was her dark eyed private. "You're an alchemist right?" he reminded her as he stood in front of her, shooting at a charging Xing soldier, who fell at their feet. Sara blanched, and thought she was going to vomit, but nodded. "Then do your thing!"

It sounded so simple when he said it. Sara gathered herself, steeling her nerves and bringing her hands together she dropped to the ground and sent violent ripples of earth shoving up, forward, bringing it up just in front of the ragged Amestrian line and tossing Xing soldiers backwards as hard as she could manage. A few Amestrians were tossed off their feet, but her precision was better than she'd been expecting.

"Forward!" she heard the shout, and the Amestrians began to regroup. Encouraged, and because it didn't require standing up, Sara pulled the same stunt, then stood and, crossing her hands, generated gusts of wind that continued to push at the Xing soldiers, anything to keep them distracted, unable to form up again. They couldn't break here. They couldn't!

"Hold still just a moment longer," Lina Doran said as she finished dabbing at Sara's forehead with an alcohol soaked cloth.

"It stings," Sara replied, biting off the curse she wanted to say – that she'd heard her father use once, but knew her mother would kill them both if she ever found out Sara knew it. It wasn't that Edward swore often, but when he did, it was effective! That thought sobered Sara immediately, and she continued to hold still. Thinking about Dad always made Sara want to go find him, and she knew now that she couldn't do that on her own. Impatience would only lead to trouble.

"Usually does," Sergeant Bors chuckled as they all sat around a fire that had been set up in the middle of the empty explosion pock-marked lot near the command center. Night had fallen some time ago, and tonight, they were celebrating!

Or at least, that was what the soldiers called it. Thanks to Sara's alchemy, little as she'd felt it had been, Armstrong and his squad had managed to make it to the back lines of the Xing force and take out their last two large artillery canons while the soldiers were fighting, and come back to a Base still standing. The Amestrian line had been able to reform where it had folded while the enemy soldiers were in disarray.

As the day had grown late, the Xing had backed up and retreated into the desert; at least for now. Then clean up had commenced. Only now that the bodies were removed – a sickening job Sara had been happy not to be asked to assist with – and broken and destroyed vehicles and other debris moved out of the way did the soldiers relax. Anything salvageable had been put on her work roster for tomorrow.

The celebration was not what Sara was used to. Her father had not talked in detail about his experiences during the Drachma border dispute that had been going on when Sara had been born; his and Uncle Al's stories were usually much more about the two of them getting shot at and managing to escape with death defying cleverness and luck. Even spending time at military HQ sometimes, she knew little about regular soldiers and their lives.

The last couple of weeks had been an eye opening experience. Now that she was one of them, it was even more-so! Tonight, she was learning a lot about the life of a soldier 'at play.'

Once Lina put a bandage over Sara's cut, declaring that it wouldn't need stitches, the rest of Sergeant Bors' group settled in with a bunch of other soldiers around the fires that had been set to burn anything that was unsalvageable that could be. The cooler night made the fire's heat almost pleasant. Sara, leaning against an empty ammunition box, and snuggled down in a light blanket, found the flames a little soothing as they danced.

As she sat there she watched, curious and not entirely feeling a part of things, as the soldiers began to laugh and talk, and the cigarettes came out, and bottles of drinks she had maybe heard of, in many cases not even that, but certainly had never tasted. Her head was throbbing a little, from exhaustion and the knock she'd taken to the head – apparently from a piece of one of the canon shot she had deflected earlier someone noted who had seen it. Sara was tired, and just watching the other soldiers was educational enough!

She was so focused on observing the general exchanges going on around her, that she was startled when Bors stood up, grinning. "I think we have someone to thank today, for giving us all our 'second wind.'" There were chuckles all around. He held up his bottle, which he had apparently already been sampling. "To the young heroine of the Battle of the Eastern Pass, who history will remember as our darlin' belle of an alchemist, Sara Elric!"

Sara felt herself blushing furiously, and glad for the firelight distorting the colors around them so it wasn't evident, as everyone within hearing range cheered and toasted her.

"Here, missy," Bors chuckled as he dropped down in the chair next to her again. He held out the bottle. "You've earned it."

Sara's eyes went wide. No way. There was no way he was really offering. But he looked serious. "But…I'm fourteen," she reminded him. He had to be drunk already!

Sergeant Bors laughed. "You're a soldier, girl, and a hero besides. You going to do me the dishonor of turning down my thanks?"

"Umm well…no," Sara looked embarrassed, but still hesitated. Her parents had made it clear that until they gave the okay, she wasn't old enough. She was a kid, and Amestris had rules. And at home, her parents' words were absolute; she rarely defied them no matter how much she argued. "Of course not, Sergeant."

No one else even seemed to have noticed. Sara reached out and took the bottle, giving it a brief sniff. Wow that was strong!  
Bors laughed. "You don't sniff it, kid. Just take a swig. It's easier."

Sara had to admit her curiosity was piqued, and she very much appreciated the fact that the men and women here took her seriously and saw her as one of them and not as just a dumb kid. So, taking him at his word, she tilted the bottle up just enough to get about roughly a quarter of a mouthful, and swallowed.

Immediately, she regretted it as it burned all the way down into her stomach, she swallowed again hard, and felt her eyes bug as she tried not to gag and cough. She took several deep breaths and, after a moment, was able to hand the bottle back with a straight face, aside from very watery eyes.

"That's a girl," Bors laughed.

"Sergeant!" Lina came over then, glaring. "Do you get some pleasure out of corrupting minors?"

Sara blushed again, feeling suddenly guilty at being caught. But if that was, well she had no clue what he'd offered her, but she definitely didn't want any again! Her tongue down to her stomach felt burned clean, and she felt a little dizzy.

Lina crouched down in front of her, her expression still stern, but kind. "You all right, Sara?" It was the first time the woman had referred to her by first name. Almost no one here did. Breda and Armstrong and a couple of the alchemists were the only exceptions.

Sara nodded. "I could use some water," she managed to squeak out, surprised at how harsh her own voice sounded.

Lina smiled then. "I bet. The first time I took a drink of Bors' whiskey I almost threw it up in his face. Take my advice, don't do it again. There are plenty of more palatable things around here that are less likely to make you sick later. C'mon," she helped Sara up. "Let's get some dinner in you too."

Perhaps she was being a little mothering, but Lina was only six years older than Sara, and it felt more like friendly advice from a wiser older sister. Sara appreciated that. She stood, and she and Lina headed over to the Base Mess tent, where Sara discovered just how much energy she had used earlier as she worked her way through two soldiers' worth of food! No one said a word in complaint though.

Today, Sara felt like she'd earned the crest on the back of her father's coat. She just wished he had been there to see it.


	4. Chapter 4

**February 20th****, 1941**

The temporary victory at the Pass would later be known as a turning point but, for now, it was a moment of calm in a storm, and that was appreciated for what it was. As soon as the opportunity was available, Breda sent out a scouting party of troops to see if they could locate where, exactly, the Xing were basing their operations out of and, if they were fortunate enough to find it, figure out if the captive alchemists – and Havoc – were there, and if they could be rescued. They set out at once and were surprisingly soon successful in locating the Xing base in old ruins only a couple of days out into the desert. They took down as accurate numbers as they could about the Xing strength, and looked for any sign of the missing alchemists.

They finally got lucky. The search team spotted two of the captured alchemists being 'escorted' back from a questioning session that had taken place out in the sand in the high point of the day. Immediately, they returned to Amestrian soil with the news.

* * *

Ed had no idea what was going on outside. He was barely aware of what was going on when he wasn't being tormented and questioned, over and over. It was still always the same questions. They varied the phrasing perhaps, but they wanted information on the Stone, and Ed wasn't going to give it to them! Unfortunately 'Over my dead body' was beginning to feel like a real possibility!

They hadn't killed him yet. But while they gave him just enough food and liquid to keep him alive and not truly starving to death, it wasn't enough to keep him properly nourished. He was losing necessary flesh and mass he'd never had to spare, and he knew Havoc wasn't faring much better. Ed's body could only heal so quickly, and it was a losing battle against time. He also couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before Lin Yao lost his patience, or gave in to true desperation. The man had not come to see Ed since their one conversation. Ed could only wonder how much longer it would be before Lin decided Ed was no longer worth the effort.

"Wow," Havoc commented when Ed was left in their cell again after another session involving alchemical burns. "You're actually starting to look scruffy, Ed."

"Believe it or not," Ed made himself retort. "I do usually shave." It wasn't with the daily necessity of a lot of guys, but he hadn't thought about it in who knew how long. His face had a decent amount of rough stubble on his chin. Replying was a point of pride now, a habit: Evidence he hadn't given up yet; even if it was just proof to himself more than anything else.

"Funny," Havoc replied with a quiet, rasping chuckle that turned into a dry cough. "How it still surprises me sometimes that you're old enough to shave."

**February 24****th****, 1941**

Lin Yao had been wondering the very same thing. Not about shaving, but when he would run out of time. Not so many years ago, all right so not more than twenty or so, he had been a fairly happy-go-lucky, enthusiastic young man, with grandiose dreams and a plan for life. He'd had a beautiful woman at his side too; Ranfan might have been his bodyguard once, but she had also been his romantic interest and, when the time had been right, he had asked her to be his wife instead. Those had been deliriously happy days that Lin had hoped would never end.

About then was when all the trouble really began to pick up in Xing. The Emperor's challenge was not new: whoever brought him the key to eternal life would become heir to his throne. What had changed was the patience and trust of the Imperial Court of Xing. The heads of the noble families if Xing and their children had grown impatient. The Emperor still lived and they began to suspect that if he gained that secret he would never die, so it didn't matter who would be his heir. The Emperor would live forever. The fire for power had become unchecked; first infighting within the clans, and then between them. The natural antagonisms brought out in full force, until Xing had been in the midst of a brutal, multi-sided civil war.

And his beloved Ranfan had been a victim of that conflict. Lin had been heartbroken when his wife was killed by assassins. As weak and ridiculous as it might have seemed, to mourn so after the loss of a woman, he had done so anyway. It had hardened his resolve however, to get rid of the Emperor. He must end the war in Xing, and bring back the ages of peace and prosperity. To do that, '_Lin'_ needed the key to immortality: the Philosopher's Stone or whatever it really was that myths and legends spoke of; that these Amestrians seemed so knowledgeable about but refused to share.

That was why he had taken all that remained of the Yao family's soldiers, and those of their allies, and his wealth, and decided to invade Amestris. He was sure their government had no idea he didn't have the entirety of Xing behind him, and it didn't matter. Lin would win this, and he would restore peace.

Except…this wasn't what he had planned. Having visited Amestris under its new regime, he had honestly expected this to be a short, relatively bloodless endeavor. The demand seemed simple enough; and what did Amestris care what happened within Xing borders?

But now, things had reached a point he didn't like at all. Never, in all his days, had Lin had a stomach for torture. The alchemists that were doing his dirty work for him were strange, third cousins on his mother's side who seemed to get far too much pleasure out of their work. Perhaps Lin would have them removed when he became Emperor. They were dangerous and ambitious and only in his control for as long as he paid them out of his pockets. They weren't cheap either.

Amestrians had been spotted in the desert as well. They knew where his base was now, and there had even been a quickly aborted operation that, Lin assumed, was an attempt to rescue the alchemists. But they had never gotten close enough to be a real threat before they turned back. However, it meant time was running out.

How long could the man hold out? How badly had he misjudged Edward Elric? He knew the man's history well, and had talked with him once, years ago. They had gotten along fairly well really. He actually felt some guilt over what was being done to the alchemists down below. But what was to be done about it? None of them would talk and, he was fairly certain now, that the only one who knew what he needed was Elric.

But how to get through to him? It was amazing the resilience the alchemist had proven to possess. Bereft of alchemy, missing two limbs, tortured day after day in as many creative ways as Lin's cousins could come up with, and still not one word; barely a whimper or yelp out of him either. It was incredible and yet insanely frustrating all at once. How could he help but respect the man for standing up for his country and doing what he thought was the right thing to do?

Perhaps, it was time to appeal to Elric's more sensitive side.

**March 1****st****, 1941**

Ed was surprised when they brought him once more into the room where he had met with Lin, however long ago it had been. That had been the last time he had seen this particular room. Still, since they had never tortured him here he dared to hope that, maybe, at least today, he might be spared the humiliation and agony that now seemed part of the routine.

He wasn't disappointed. Ten minutes after they arrived, the door opened and Lin Yao, in the same dramatic Xing uniform, entered. "You're pretty stubborn, Edward," he said, almost conversationally. "I have to say, I'm impressed."

"Glad to know I'm keeping you entertained," Ed snapped, forcing as much strength into his voice and his bearing as he could. He refused to slump in the chair any more than he had to the way he was chained to it. His eyes flashed. "What do you want?"

"To make you an offer," Lin perched on the edge of the desk in the middle of the room. He grinned almost boyishly.

Ed wondered if he could lunge forward fast enough to bite the man. If he'd had the energy, perhaps. For now, he contented himself with glaring. "I'm listening."

"It's simple," Lin chuckled. "You tell me what you know. I know you know about the Philosopher's Stone. We discussed it once, briefly. Let me know everything… and I won't kill all your comrades."

"You bastard!" Ed tried to lunge forward anyway, and was embarrassed when he didn't move more than a couple of inches. Still, he 'was' chained. "They don't know anything! I know you've tortured them the same way."

"Not quite the same," Scary Woman – as Ed had taken to thinking of her – smiled sweetly. "You are most special, and much more of a challenge. The rest are so easy to break they are rather disappointing. It would be more satisfying to simply kill them."

Ed's brain was racing. Kill them?! That meant, or at least implied that Marcus, Matthias and the rest were presumably still alive. He doubted they had caved 'that' easily though, so he ignored the woman's words on that count. If he could perhaps arrange something better. Maybe he could at least get them spared or…. "Wait."

Lin's grinned broadened as if he were inordinately pleased. "Please go on, Edward."

"I'll talk," Ed sighed, closing his eyes. He couldn't believe he was saying this, and he wasn't done yet, but if he could manage a little time, or at least, get them out, than it would be worth the sacrifice, "On one condition."

"You're hardly in a position to be setting conditions," the male alchemist snorted.

"Let him speak," Lin held up one hand. "I'm intrigued."

"Very well," the man sighed.

Ed looked up into Lin's face. "Let my squad go, all of them. You know they have no useful information. Heck, Havoc's not even an alchemist."

"He's also not part of your team, I believe," Lin said, but he seemed to be considering it. "All right. For the release of the other alchemists, you will talk."

"They go first," Ed replied.

"You are bold," Lin laughed. "Very well then. Indeed. I will arrange for their release. I will even let you watch the exchange."

"And Havoc?"

"Don't push your luck," Lin scowled then, and Ed knew he was treading on quicksand with that one. "Colonel Havoc will remain as your cell mate. I won't kill him, for now."

Sorry, Jean. Well, it was better than nothing. Ed nodded. "It's a deal."

**March 5****th****, 1941**

Winry held her breath when Alphonse told her that Xing had agreed to release 'some' of the hostages, though they hadn't said which ones. She had received word – after the battle on February fifteenth, of her daughter's location. It had been all Al, Gracia, and Elicia could do to keep her from harrying off to the front herself after her daughter!

"She's got Armstrong and Breda keeping an eye on her," Alphonse had said calmingly. "They won't let anything happen to her."

"If they can help it," Winry had sighed, growled, and cried herself to sleep that night after Aldon and Ethan were in bed. She desperately wanted word of her husband, and to see – and possibly throttle – her teenage daughter. She ached to have them both safely home, and the long waiting was driving her crazy! Two and a half months since Ed's disappearance; two since they had learned that at least some of the hostages – included Edward and Jean Havoc – were still living. After this long…she hated to consider the reality that Ed had once more been torn from her life by his duty, and for being who he was. Would the world never leave them be?

She was mildly relieved, the day she heard that there would be hostages released, to receive a message that had been sent via radio and transcribed down. It was short, but at least it was something! That child was so grounded when she got home!

_**Mom, I'm all right. General Breda and General Armstrong are keeping an eye on me. I'm behaving, and I've been very helpful to them. Did you hear about the battle? Probably. Don't worry about it. I'm fine! I think Dad would be proud. Love you, Private Sara Elric. **_

Private. Winry had glared up at Alphonse as if he were a traitor for not mentioning that part. "Since when is my teenage daughter a Private in Amestris' military, Alphonse?"

Al looked abashed, but smiled and shrugged. "Apparently Breda figured the best way to keep her from running off into danger was to draft her – temporarily of course- and put her to work out of harms way."

"And that battle was out of harms way?" Winry arched an eyebrow at him.

"He tried," Al sighed. "At least she's all right, and we know where she is. Think about it, Winry," he put an arm around her shoulder briefly. "Sara is Ed's daughter. Do you really think he would have done things differently if he felt as strongly about this as she does?"

"Well, no," Winry sighed. Of course, Edward might not have gone for other reasons, but if put in the situation of say, saving his mother or brother, he'd have gone without a second thought. "But I'd kind of hoped she might be a little less impulsive than either of us. Instead, she seems to have gotten it in spades." Where had her patient little girl gone?

* * *

Edward watched from one of the towers in the abandoned city, with his 'bodyguards' and Lin Yao on either side of him, as the other alchemists were escorted out into the desert. Below, a small contingent of Amestrian soldiers stood – their blue uniforms surprisingly bright against the sandy backdrop below. They looked so clean compared to what Ed had seen lately, despite the fact he knew they were probably gritty and coated in dust. The sun was also nearly blinding after having been mostly underground –as he had discovered now – for so long. The light in there cell had been very filtered. He squinted as he watched, but he recognized all fourteen of his alchemists as they were dragged out in rags, many of them barefoot – he recognized Matthias by his auto-mail foot, which he apparently hadn't been relieved of.

There were some more Xing soldiers returned from the other side, and then the alchemists were helped into the trucks that had come out from the border, and driven away. Only when they were out of sight did Ed relax.

When it was over, he was dragged back downstairs, and immediately stripped naked and strapped to the table he had sarcastically begun to think of as 'bed.' It was where they screwed him over after all, wasn't it?

"All right now," Lin was actually in the room this time; a bizarre and, Ed had to admit to himself, worrisome change. "Tell me about the Philosopher's Stone, Edward, and tell me the truth of it."

Ed grimaced, but knew he might be able to avoid today's throttling, if not tomorrow's. He had no illusions that Lin Yao would be satisfied with his answer. "The Philosopher's Stone is no myth," he began, and Lin simply watching him with eager interest – a boyish expression much like what he had worn when they had first met, at least a decade ago now. Now though, it was disturbing to see. There was something wrong with the man, Ed knew that for certain. "It's real, but it's not easy to make."

"I have all the resources I could need to buy supplies, Edward," Lin smiled. "Don't worry about that. Just continue."

"It's not a stone really," he went on. "It can take a lot of different forms. But it comes at a price. You're familiar with Equivalent Exchange right?"

The two alchemists snorted. "An interesting principle," the man scoffed.

"I am," was all Lin said.

"Well, the price for the Stone is inordinately high," Ed continued. If nothing else, maybe Lin would be foolish enough to use half of Xing to try and make a stone. Lin himself wasn't an alchemist though; and Ed didn't like to think what the two who had been working him over would do with one. "It requires thousands of human lives."

"I see." Lin's face went still, but he didn't look revolted, or declare this was over, or anything even remotely useful.

"Hardly an issue," the male alchemists shook his head. "With a civil war, there are enough people dying as it is. There are criminals of the state enough in the prisons already for such a thing I am certain."

"Indeed," Lin seemed to shake himself out of some reverie. "But how do you make it?"

"Honestly, gathering those lives is the only way I know of," Ed replied. "There are ways of making a fake, a cheap imitation, but I doubt they would be able to fool any alchemists your Emperor may have in his employ." They certainly were nothing like the real thing; Ed knew that! He played the red water down in the hopes that it would be immediately brushed aside as not worth trying.

"Very true," Lin just nodded, and Ed realized he'd dodged one hole successfully. Lin had no interest in the red water, or a fake stone; which meant his chances of success had just dropped by a massive notch.

"While we're all being so friendly," Lin smiled. "Why don't you tell me a little bit about Human Transmutation, and what are they called… soul attachments?"

Okay, this was going way too far. Ed had no interest in letting Lin start up that whole mess again by trying to bring someone back from the dead! Something in the man's eyes said that was what Lin hoped for, perhaps more than the Stone. "Not a chance, pal. That wasn't part of the deal!" His yell turned to a gasp as scalding hot salt water was dumped across the lower half of his body. He clenched his jaw tight, refusing to scream as it hit all of the half healed cuts and wounds, and he silently started reeling off the components of the human body in his head.

Ed tried not to look at anything. He wanted rest so badly; real sleep; not the aching cat naps he caught chained to this damned wall! He was still soaking wet, stinging from the salt that was almost worse than having his wounds swabbed with alcohol. Almost: he couldn't decide which one really hurt more. They had questioned him about the Stone again for nearly three hours, with Lin adding questions about soul attachments and human transmutation into the mix. It had certainly made for a more interesting session! It was one Ed had no interest in repeating. For lack of any other way to relieve the misery, he groaned softly.

"Good, you're alive." Havoc's commentary had gotten less and less frequent, and less amusing. Ed knew they were both being worn down; and he hated it.

"Hey, Jean," he managed. Maybe this time, it was his turn.

"What, Ed?"

"When we get out…of here," he swallowed trying to moisten his throat. "Let's go get absolutely ripped…okay?"

Havoc responded with a dry chuckle. "Whatever you say, Chief."

* * *

The day of hope ended with a sharp, short, crushing blow.

"I'm sorry, Winry," Alphonse said, feeling as heart-broken as Winry looked. "Apparently, it was Ed who made the deal. We don't know what he offered them, but they let the other alchemists go. But they kept Ed and Havoc."

Winry fell into Al's arms then and cried. Al held her and hugged her for as long as it took, until finally Winry ran out of tears, and even the dry sobbing ceased. Then she sat up, wiped her eyes, and thanked him for being the one to tell her.

He didn't envy Winry the position of having to tell the boys that their father was still behind enemy walls, but Al did as she asked when Winry told him to go home to Elicia.

His wife had already heard the news by the time Al got home. Elicia was waiting at the door when he opened it, and they embraced in a tight hug. There was no need for words. He knew Elicia could tell the pain that Al felt inside, knowing what they were doing to his brother. He hadn't told Winry what the reports had said of what kinds of tortures the freed alchemists had reported back during their initial debriefing on the trucks: beatings mostly, whippings, being forced to sit naked in the hot son of the dessert for hours without water or shade. From one or two of them, there had been other torments in the reports. That information had been radioed straight to Breda and then back to Central.

It was a quiet evening. Will and Alyse seemed to understand the unease in the house. They cried a little when they found out that Uncle Ed wasn't coming home yet, and went to bed without protest.

Al hugged Elicia tight against him as they sat on the bed later, dressed for sleep. "I should have been there," he said softly. The smell of her hair, the feel of her warmth in his arms, these were comforts he desperately needed. "Things like this only seem to happen to Ed when we're separated."

"It's not your fault, Alphonse," Elicia said softly, her head resting on his shoulder. "Roy ordered you to stay in Central. Ed wanted you to stay too."

"That's part of why it hurts," Al admitted. "I was tempted to go anyway."

"You wouldn't have," Elicia chuckled softly. "You're much better at following the rules than your brother."

"But I don't know if I could have done something," Al sighed and closed his eyes. He could feel his own tears – the ones he had not shed with Winry – starting to burn along the edges of his eyes. "Or if I could now. I want to go to him, Elicia. I want to just drop everything and go out there and find him and stop them from hurting him… and I can't. I don't know what he pulled to get Matthias and Marcus and the rest released, but I'll bet part of it was them keeping Ed. What they're doing to people in there it's…" his voice hitched and broke off as a small sob escaped him. It was inhuman, and it went against everything an alchemist was supposed to do.

"Don't give up," Elicia moved, and Al opened his eyes quickly when she planted herself in the middle of his lap, her arms gently around his neck for balance. "Of anyone, you're the one who has never given up on Edward, right? Right." She nodded firmly. "You never doubted he was alive after he left to put you back in your body, and look how that worked out? So keep believing in him. He'll know."

Al pulled her close against him again, this time from the front as the tears slid down his cheeks. Elicia was good at saying the right thing to him, keeping things in perspective and reassuring him when he needed it. "You're right, of course," Al kissed her. "I love you." Having her there, if nothing else, reminded him that he was alive, that his family was safe, and that the main reason Ed likely had insisted that Al not go with him was to protect as much of his family as possible from losing someone they loved. He wouldn't have let Al give up the happiness he had found for anything.

Elicia kissed him, but when he pulled back, she didn't. Her lips moved to his face, gently kissing away his tears. Her hands slid off his neck and down his shoulders, then came together as they came down his chest. Feather-light kisses continued, and Al became all too aware of how thin the fabric of Elicia's nightgown was, the brush of her chest against his. His breath caught and his eyes came open again as she pushed lightly, knocking them both over on the bed, her light frame pressed down on top of him. She never asked what was on his mind, but she seemed to read him anyway. She chuckled softly. "I love you too, and I think tonight, you could use a little comfort…and a little distraction." She kissed him again, and Al couldn't argue with her. Not that he wanted to; but she was right on both counts.

Al willingly gave in to Elicia's alluring presence and familiar touch. He needed the comfort, the distraction from his worries, and the release.

* * *

"So you called Alphonse again," Riza commented as Roy curled up next to her in their bed, wrapping his arms around her from behind. "Not Winry."

"I couldn't do it," Roy admitted softly in the darkness. "Guilt wouldn't let me. I shot her parents, Riza. The fact that she forgave me for that is nothing short of a miracle. Now I've sent her husband off into the hands of the enemy and he may very well die if he's not dead already." Saying it aloud hurt even worse. But then, he deserved that bit of pain for what he had done to people's lives. "And their daughter's run off into a war zone because of me."

"You told Sara not to go," Riza reminded him firmly. "That she has Edward's impetuous nature is not your fault."

"But I can't help but wonder how much of the past shapes the future," Roy replied. "She made a point of making the comparison between herself and Ed's joining the military at twelve."

"Maes told me that he thinks she went to save Edward," Riza snuggled back against him. "Breda kept her from doing anything more foolish. Like it or not, Sara's actions saved many lives. She was the asset she claimed she could be."

"And I'm sure she'll never let me forget it," Roy grumbled. Sara was more like Ed than Roy had ever realized; she was just better behaved most of the time. Obviously, she had his talent and his perseverance. "If she ever talks to me again when this is all over."

"In my experience," Riza commented softly. "The Elrics are much more forgiving than we ever have the right to expect."

* * *

It was late by the time Winry had calmed Aldon and Ethan and gotten them to bed. With the two boys down for the night, the house was far too quiet for her tastes. Even with three people and the dogs in it, it seemed empty. With the news of Ed's continued capture, Winry didn't feel like sleeping just yet. If she tried, she knew all that she would get would be a fitful rest full of nightmares. They came often enough anyway. So she got into her nightgown, made a hot cup of tea, and went out onto the back deck.

The night sky was cloudless, the stars surprisingly bright tonight given the amount of light in Central. It seemed unfair that a sky so beautiful should shine down on such a heavy heart. Knowing that Edward was locked in a cell; that he couldn't see the stars she saw tonight, made her grief well up all over again.

It was stupid. He wasn't dead, she knew that, but she felt as if he might as well be; her faith was slipping day by day, her surety that Ed would keep his promise and find a way out, and come home to her fading. And Winry hated it. All their lives, no matter how long the separation, she and Ed had found their way back to each other, the same way Ed and Al could never be permanently separated it seemed, no matter what the universe did to them.

Yet all she noticed lately was the marked absence of the man she had made her life with; who she had loved since he was an irritating, short-tempered runt of a boy. If she closed her eyes and stood here at the rail, she could almost feel his arms slide up from behind and wrap around her, one warm flesh, the other cool machinery; his warm body pressing up against her back. He would whisper in her ear, or bury his face in her hair. Together they had watched the stars so many times from this porch now, and so many other places in their house.

At the strangest moments lately, she would be sure she heard his steps in the hall, or his laugh in the kitchen. Winry would have been ecstatic to hear him come slamming through the door, complaining about something one of his students did, or something Roy Mustang had said, barking at the top of his lungs. Missing him and knowing that he was suffering hurt her deeply; and she understood now the pain Ed had gone through worrying about her dying after the accident, or during the difficult last weeks of her pregnancy with Ethan. Perhaps, too, this was what it really felt like to lose a limb, to be missing a vital part of a person. Auto-mail couldn't fix the pain she felt…not unless it was attached to a particular human body, returned to her alive.

Yet missing him was all she could do; gathering every image and memory of her husband to her, almost like armor against the world that threatened the happiness of her family. Ed's hair when it tickled her skin, the warmth in his eyes when he looked at her, especially when they were alone; the way he spoke when only she could hear him, and the way his smooth skin and solid muscles felt under her hands: they overwhelmed her.

She even missed coming home to find the mess in the living room that often followed an afternoon of alchemical experimentation with Ed and Sara. The thought of her absent daughter only heightened Winry's pain, and made her mad again. Her oldest child off doing what, Winry admitted, she had wanted to do herself. She was used to following Ed; when he went places she could not follow, she found a way. Only this time, she couldn't do that. They were in the same world, but it was not the same life they had once had. The boys needed her most now, and here, where she could be there for them.

How had Granny Pinako stood it; always being the one at home, waiting, creating the safe haven to which her family returned? Winry chafed at the part she was given to play in this; hating every moment she could do nothing directly to bring her husband home safely. With the boys here, she couldn't go off herself, but when she looked up at the back of her house, it was at the windows of the bedroom that was hers and Ed's, and the window to Sara's room. Both windows were currently dark.

The stars above continued to shine down, some sparkling, but all silent witnesses to her sorrow. Winry cried beneath them, wishing and praying for a miracle, and feeling guilty for thinking that this was something Ed couldn't get out of on his own. As long as he came back to her, alive, Winry didn't care how it was accomplished anymore. It was selfish, but in her heart, she simply couldn't accept giving up her husband, and everything they had together, over this. She wasn't willing to give him up for Amestris anymore.

Winry didn't want to consider the reality that Ed was very likely lost to her for good, all because of some damned Emperor across the desert and that twice-damned Philosopher's Stone! But she knew Al was right. Ed would have put his own life ahead of his men without hesitation if it meant protecting them, and protecting his home and his family.

"Damn you, Edward Elric," she spoke softly into the night, feeling tears, hot compared to the chill night air, running down her cheeks. Her hands clenched tightly around her mug as she watched the steam fading away into the cold night air. "You're always selfless at the times I wish you weren't. Don't you dare give up now! If you do, I swear someday I'll find a way to kick your ass." She would too! Ed had to come back to her; she wasn't willing to give him any other choice!

**March 7****th****, 1941**

"I'm really getting tired of this you know," Ed mouthed off, as usual, at the beginning of that day's session. They'd dragged him out early in the morning, right after breakfast, and strapped him to the table. This time though, they let him keep his under shorts on. Ed didn't comment, he didn't want that brief respite from torture taken away!

"That's all right," Scary Woman smiled sweetly. "Today, we're going to try something…creative."

"Like what? More hot pokers?" Ed sniped.

"Oh no." She turned around from the table, holding a small syringe with a needle on it. "Today I thought we'd try a little real alchemy."

Ed tried not to panic when he saw the needle. He had no idea what was in there, but if she was smiling, it couldn't be good. There were a lot of ways in which alchemy was useful for medicine; making medicines by combining the helpful components of plants, purifying water, fixing equipment, but there were ways that could be subverted too. Not all plants' properties were healing, and there were, Ed knew, plenty of plants out there that when used in particular ways could stimulate the brain, and much worse than the cigarettes Havoc enjoyed so much, or alcohol did from fermentation. They could cause hallucinations; bizarre dreams, and weaken the resolve, causing people to speak their mind whether they wanted to or not. A mistake in the dosage of some of them could kill.

Ed had heard of these things, had read about them, but he had never wanted to mess with alchemy of that nature. Now, he wished he knew what was coming at him.

"Don't worry," Scary Woman chuckled. "This will only hurt for a moment!"

Ed closed his eyes, and barely noticed the prick as the needle went into his arm. Then the world began to spin, and even with eyes clenched shut, he saw colors begin to dance before his eyes.

"There," a sweet voice spoke, seeming to echo into a void. It sounded like Winry. "Isn't that better? Now…shall we begin?"


	5. Chapter 5

**March 15th****, 1941**

Sara wiped her forehead on her dusty sleeve as she stepped up next to the men who were shoveling dirt. "I've got it, guys," she said and they stopped, stepping back and seeming glad to take a break.

"Could've saved us the trouble earlier!" A Private 1st Class laughed.

"Ah, she was too busy," another one chuckled. "At least we're done now."

Sara smiled tiredly, clapped her gloved hands together, and brought them to the ground. She knew it was a gesture and little else; but she couldn't imagine doing alchemy without it now. Before her, the barricade the men had been working to build out of dirt and wood rose up. Concentrating hard, she visualized what it needed to be and, when she opened her eyes again several seconds later, there it was; Simple, fairly crude, but effective, and pretty much how it would have looked if the soldiers had put it together themselves. It wasn't fancy, but it would work!

"Well done," Armstrong's deep voice came from behind her and his hand rested on her shoulder. "With the reinforcements arriving today, I think this will finally turn to our advantage."

"Thank you, Sir," Sara smiled up at him. It felt good to be really useful and ever since her part in the battle no one treated her like she was just a kid who'd run away and joined the army, even if that was, in technicality, what she had done! At least they respected what she could do with alchemy. There had been attacks since, but nothing nearly as pitched, and all a little further out in the desert. Still, they wanted the Base reinforced. Nothing could get through here; they couldn't afford that kind of a loss.

Sara was glad, though she would have been embarrassed to admit it, that she hadn't been part of the battle again since. Not from nearly so close! It had been a hair-raising, exhilarating, and absolutely horrifying experience. She'd had nightmares for the next week about the dead she had seen, and she hadn't seen that many, and not up close. She was gladder than ever of Lina's guidance too. The more experienced soldier had saved her from having to 'politely' take drinks from several other soldiers showing gratitude, without making Sara look like a kid again. She had also been up with her the one night Sara had awoken from a particularly horrible nightmare, sobbing softly. Only Lina knew about that incident, but she'd never told anyone else.

"Get some rest," Armstrong smiled back at her. "The new men will be arriving soon, and we could use your help making sure everyone gets settled."

"Yes Sir!" Sara brightened. Something positive to do that didn't involve fixing things. "Thank you, Sir!"

**March 18****th****, 1941**

"What do you mean the Emperor of Xing is dead?" Roy Mustang asked the man on the phone who was calling, he knew, from Base Command. He was apparently a local who hadn't left the area. Now it seemed, that was a good thing.

"Just what I said, Sir," the man sounded utterly exhausted and very flustered. "One of my sons is a merchant, and he went over there a couple of months ago. He managed to get a radio message through open channels. That's why I came running, Sir. It just happened yesterday."

"And an heir?" Mustang glowered at the phone, imagining the face on the other end of the line. "Did the Emperor name an heir to his throne?"

"Not that he mentioned, Sir," the man replied sounding slightly befuddled and helpless.

"All right, thank you for your assistance. Please put the General back on." He waited until he heard Breda pick up again. "Breda. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Absolutely, Sir," Breda's voice sounded fuller, with some renewed vigor. "I'll be sending in the troops while they're still absorbing the news, Sir."

Surely, surely, this would shake the Xing army out there up enough to distract them long enough to send in a rescue team.

"You're what?" Sara looked at the men who were planning in the command center around her. "You're going in tonight? Let me go, please!" If they were going in to get her father, this was her chance to do what she came here for in the first place!

"No, Private," Breda accented the word. "This isn't defense. This is a very tricky assignment for specialized, trained soldiers." He accented soldiers; something that Sara really could not claim to be with any effectiveness. She could fight, she could do alchemy, but this was likely to involve real killing, something even she knew she wasn't ready to do. Hopefully, she thought, she never would be. "All right," she sighed. "But please, please get them out!"

Armstrong nodded. "That's the plan."

It was just past dark when the Xing base was hit, but they never realized it until it was too late. Armstrong led the remaining alchemists into the ruins while the Xing were trying to figure out what to do next. They were milling around, talking animatedly and clearly paying little attention to what was going on. It was easy to slip past them. The rescue party included any of the alchemists who had been returned from here who were in remotely good enough shape to come back and show them the way, now knowing the place better than anyone else.

* * *

Upstairs Lin Yao was in turmoil. The Emperor was dead! There was no need to worry about taking him out now; a self-placed duty that no longer weighed on him. But now it posed another problem. Even knowing how to make a Philosopher's Stone, he was no closer to the throne. The Emperor had, so it had been reported and sent to 'them' on their own radio channels, named an heir on his death bed; a young man from one of the lesser families. Or at least, Lin thought of them as lesser. They were an enemy of Yao. But it was accepted in the Capitol, and that made it law.

If Lin tried to take the Empire now, would he be doing Xing a favor, or pulling his land into more warfare?

He was so torn about this that he went down into the dungeons, and sought out the only person who might know.

Ed knew he was still hallucinating when he saw Lin Yao walk into the room. Whatever Scary Woman enjoyed pumping into his veins, it took a long time to leave, and Ed's head was swimming. Five minutes before, he'd been sure he'd been in bed with Winry, and before that, swimming in the ocean with a green octopus. Really! Everyone knew octopuses were purple!

"What do you want?" he asked the shape that resembled Lin Yao. "I've told you everything I know. Why don't you just leave me alone?"

"Because," Wow, it sounded like Lin too! How novel. "I don't know what to do. The Emperor is dead, and he's named an heir."

"Good for him," Ed squinted, trying to decide why Lin was wearing an entire peacock for a hat. Not that it mattered of course; he could wear whatever he damn well pleased. "Why are you bothering me with this?"

"I want your advice," the hallucination spoke. Yeah, no way this was real! Still, it was entertaining. More so than the vomiting that occurred later usually when the drug wore off. "What should I do?"

Heh, nice. "You really want to know?" The words sounded fine in Ed's head, but they came out thick, slurred, and it was strange. Still, he kept speaking. "Go home, Lin. Stand by the new Emperor and help to end war in your land with peace, not by trying to overpower the people you disagree with."

Lin seemed to consider this, and then the colored blob morphed into a birdlike thing and swayed towards the door. "Thank you, Edward Elric. I appreciate your candor."

Too bad the real Lin would never hear those words Ed thought as he closed his eyes again.

Lin had just reached his rooms when he heard an explosion below that rocked the foundations of the very building he stood in. For a moment, he thought about running and yelling for help. It didn't take him more than another moment to realize exactly who was knocking at his doors. Cleverly, Lin decided that it was time to do what he should have done when Amestris first said 'no.' He headed for the back exit and abandoned ship, so to speak. He found a truck, and gave the order to evacuate, retreat and follow to his military advisors. Then he headed for Xing as fast as he could manage it.

* * *

The alchemists met with no resistance whatsoever when they reached the cell block just under ground. Armstrong could hardly believe it. Were their enemies so cowardly as to run, or merely so over confident that they felt no need to secure their prisoners more closely?

"Just be grateful," Marcus commented with a smirk as he led them, limping slightly, down the hall to the right door. "Fullmetal and Colonel Havoc are in this one. I'm sure of it."

"Then stand back!" Armstrong said and with a single punch he demolished the lock on the door, and the door swung open.

Inside was a pathetic, gut wrenching sight: two men, barely recognizable really, chained to the wall. All right, so Edward was clearly recognizable, given he had two limbs missing, but beyond that, and the rough pair of simple Xing military pants on him, his body was a mass of scars and half healed wounds, mottled and mangled on skin that stretched starkly over his ribs. Armstrong's insides clenched. He had no stomach for torture, for needless death; it had been all he could do to come through the Ishbal Massacre. How he had hoped, all those years ago, that Edward would never have to experience this side of conflict. This though, was much worse.

Havoc looked mildly better; at least he still had his military undershirt, ragged as it was, and was actually conscious. His body did not seem to have nearly the scarring or other damage either. He looked up at them and a weak but very real smirk came to his lips. "Hey, Alex….took you long enough."

The alchemists poured into the cell then, making quick work – no keys needed of course – of their chains. When they unchained Edward, he sagged to the ground, unmoving. Concerned, Armstrong knelt beside him, feeling for a pulse. It was there. He was breathing, but it was shallow and he was sweating. "What's wrong with him?" he asked, looking at Havoc, who was rubbing his wrists now that they were free, and draining a canteen of water Lyssandra Fines, one of the female alchemists, offered him.

Havoc sighed. "I don't know what it is, but they kept sticking him full of something nasty. He was hallucinating pretty badly, and it takes a while to wear off. I haven't heard much lucid out of him in a few days. I mean, he talks, and sometimes he sounds completely normal but, they've had him pumped full of crap on top of everything else and…."

"What?" Armstrong urged him, his large voice coming out soft, gentle; something that happened only on rare occasions.

"You'll see eventually," Havoc sighed. "Damn," he sighed, leaning backwards against the wall for a moment. "Does anybody have a cigarette?"

"Sorry," Marcus shrugged and smirked. "We could probably light it for you if we had one, but no one here smokes."

Havoc groaned as Lyssandra helped him to his feet. "Alchemists; none of you are normal!"

"It took you this long to figure it out?" Marcus chuckled as he went over to Havoc and ducked up under his other arm. "Hang on there, Colonel. We've got stretchers waiting just outside, and a truck that's supposed to meet up with us a little outside of this place."

"What's going on topside?" Havoc asked, looking suddenly nervous.

"That's the interesting thing," Armstrong commented as he very carefully scooped Edward up in his arms all by himself. "The Xing seem to be evacuating and leaving as fast as they can. Their Emperor died yesterday morning, and a new heir was named. Apparently that was enough to change what happened here."

Havoc smirked. "Funny…that's what Lin said."

"Who?" Armstrong gave him a questioning frown as they headed out of the cell.

"I'll explain later."

"Where are Edward's limbs?" Armstrong asked.

"Don't know," Havoc sighed. "They took them away first thing, before we even got here. Saw his watch around on that crazy lady alchemist; there were two that were in charge of torture and social events," he smirked. "Not sure if she ever took it off though."

"I'll look for it," Kyle Byrnes commented. "I'd kind of like to get mine back too. It'd be a real souvenir now!" And he vanished around a corner.

As luck would have it, by the time they reached the top of the stairs and the four others waiting with stretchers, Kyle found where the Xing had stashed –and promptly forgot about as they were already doing their best to leave – a very nice pile of silver watches. There were only fourteen. Edward's wasn't among them.

"Seems wrong to leave it," Marcus sighed. "But I think Ed will forgive us."

"Indeed," Armstrong nodded. "There are much more important things. Let's get back to Base."

**March 19****th****, 1941**

It was very early morning, barely dawn when Sara spotted the convoy coming back out of the desert. She hadn't slept all night; too nervous and excited, too filled with hopes and fears and an underlying current of dread to get any sleep. So she had gotten a hold of a hot thermos of coffee – that she had crammed full of milk and sugar to take the worst of the taste off – and actually climbed up on top of the command center, keeping watch all night long, as if it would bring them back any faster. She sat there on the edge of the flat roof. And, while her father didn't believe – or so he claimed – in a higher power, Sara prayed all night long that, if there was one, he or she would hear her words, and bring her father home alive. It couldn't hurt!

As soon as the trucks appeared, she leaped from the roof, startling a half-sleeping door guard as she darted around the building and inside where Breda, looking similarly sleepless, looked up from a steaming cup of coffee. "They're coming back! I mean, the convoy is returning, Sir," Sara blurted out before falling back to procedure.

Breda chuckled and hauled himself out of his chair. "Let's go see what the cats dragged in, Private." Then his face sobered. "You sure you want to meet them? This probably won't be pretty."

Sara nodded. "Marcus and the others said Dad was alive when they saw him. But I have to see him myself, I have to know… whatever happened after they were let free."

Breda clapped a hand on her shoulder then, and smiled. "Let's go welcome our friends home then, in whatever form they've returned to us."

Sara nodded, and followed Breda out of the building where they waited for the trucks to draw closer. Then they went to the medical tent. That was where, much as Sara hated to think about it, their recovered soldiers would be taken. That was how things worked.

Armstrong got out of the front of the first truck, and Sara recognized Marcus Kane in the driver's seat. She resisted the urge to wave, standing resolutely next to Breda as Armstrong stopped in front of them, and saluted.

Breda saluted back; then dropped the formalities. "Did you find them, Armstrong? Tell me, man! What's going on out there?"

"When we arrived, the Xing army was in full retreat," Armstrong reported first, like any good officer. "It is my belief that we won't be seeing them again. Colonel Havoc seems to believe the same."

Sara saw a light come into Breda's eyes. "Havoc does, does he?" the man grinned. "Well then I guess it must be so." He walked around toward the back of the truck.

"You bet it is!" From the back of the truck came a familiar, if not as robust, voice. Sara followed Breda around, and couldn't help but grin when a very beaten, but clearly living, Colonel Jean Havoc gave them a jaunty salute. He blinked then, and looked down at Sara. "Hell, Armstrong was right, kid. I feel like I'm having flashbacks."

Sara blushed, but stood firm her ground. She looked up into the truck. "Where is he?" she asked simply.

The silence that fell was frightening. There were several averted pairs of eyes before Havoc actually spoke up first. "He's in the other truck," he said quietly, and motioned to the one that was now parked right behind them.

From the tone of his voice, Sara almost broke down into tears right there. Her father couldn't be dead. He couldn't! There was nothing in this world, or any other, that could take down Edward Elric! But she didn't cry. Instead she turned and walked, then gave up and ran, to the back of the other truck and looked up. There was a stretcher of some kind laid out in the middle, and two of the other alchemists were in the back with it. Without a word, Sara scrambled up inside, determined to see for herself, no matter how much it might hurt.

The sight that met her eyes was more horrible than even the dead she had seen, though all she could see was her father's face, beaten almost beyond recognition, save that she knew every line of it by heart. A sheet covered the rest of him. When no one stopped her, she pulled it down some. His chest and remaining arm looked no better; Layer upon layer of half healed bruises, cuts, welts, and burns. He was breathing, but it was hard to tell just by looking at him that he was still alive. Tears welled in her eyes. "How could they do this?" she asked, the words almost squeaking as they came out.

"Desperation," Armstrong spoke quietly from behind. "War makes people do cruel things, Sara. It brings out the worst in many, and the best in only a very few. Be reassured though, that Edward is very much alive."

Sara nodded. She could see that first aid had already been applied to the worst of the injuries, but there was a long way to go before her father was well and whole again. "I'll take care of him," she said, her voice no steadier, but her words resolute.

To her surprise no one argued, not even the doctor and nurses on staff at the base. Her father was carried inside and laid out on one of the cots, despite the fact he was still fairly filthy and in need of a lot of treatment. "We'll start with a very gentle bath," one of the nurses said, after Sara had watched the doctor give her father a very thorough examination, through all of which he made almost no sounds, groaning once when one of the nurses helped turn him sideways to get a look at the mostly healed whip lash marks, scabs, and burns on his back. He was so thin, and so frail looking, Sara had to hold herself firmly under control to keep from telling them not to break him!

"All right." Sara nodded and, with the nurse supervising, she ever so gently bathed her father's body; at least the top half. She winced as she watched dirt and sand and grime fall away, taking layers of scabbing with it; and sometimes causing fresh bleeding. But the nurse assured her that was fine, that all of his injuries would be treated as soon as they were clean. They needed to deal with the infections that were just beginning to fester, and for that, wounds needed to be cleaned! She even commented that they were surprisingly clean wounds as it was. The nurse had expected much further stages of infection. Sara grimaced and continued.

Sara even took the time to wash her father's hair. It took some doing, given how dirty and matted it had become after months without proper care, but she took the time to comb out the entire length, just to save him and her mother the pain of having to cut it off. After everything he had been through, it just seemed wrong to cut off what Sara had always thought of as one of her father's defining characteristics; his sign of independence and individuality; his dominant spirit. When she was finished, she trimmed off only the dead ends then braided it neatly.

There was nothing to be done for his missing limbs; though she did make sure the arm socket was clean so that there wouldn't be problems with attaching a new limb later.

It seemed so strange, touching her father while he was unconscious; but this was a war, and right now he was a patient. His skin felt hot in places, and she could tell he was feverish. She fought back tears when she heard the doctor clarifying for the alchemists just what chemicals had been dumped into her father's body after looking at a blood sample. Thanks to her training, she knew what they were and what they could do to a person. At that moment, she wished she didn't.

"We'll take it from here," the doctor said finally, placing a hand on the blanket so Sara couldn't lift it off.

"What about the leg socket and the rest of him?" Sara countered, scowling.

Breda looked a little grey. "There are some things no man should ever have to go through. I don't think Ed would forgive us for letting you see, kiddo. And you're his daughter."

So she was kiddo again. Not even 'kid' or 'Private.' She knew she should be offended, but the earlier words hit first, and she couldn't keep from gasping as she realized what Breda meant. "They wouldn't have…. there too?" She had seen the marks on the rest of her father's body. Had she really expected them to spare anything more sensitive?

The looks on their faces made it clear that Sara's guess was correct. The idea revolted her, and her stomach lurched. "I umm…excuse me. I need some air." With that, she ducked out of the tent, and promptly threw up in the dusty grass nearby; the very images such an idea conjured up were just that horrible. It was only worse to consider that it was her father's body those things had been done to.

To their credit, no one came after her. Sara waited until her stomach was done heaving, wiped her mouth on a handkerchief and straightened herself up again. When she came back inside no one said anything; and again, she was grateful.

"I've already got a message off to Central," Breda was saying when she returned, "With the news that we've recovered Jean and Edward, and that Xing appears to be in full retreat. Of course," he added, "We'll keep a presence around here awhile longer until we know for sure this isn't an elaborate feint of some kind." Sara could tell from his tone that Breda didn't think it all that likely. He was all-business, but she knew he was relieved. The general air of everyone around her was that this was finally over except for the unpleasant business of cleaning up, licking wounds, and moving on.

Sara sat down at her father's side. She wanted to take his hand, but she feared hurting him. The doctor and nurses had seen to his wounds but, to cover all of them, large portions of his body had simply been covered in massive white bandages; much easier than trying to do so many individual ones. At least now he was clean, and taken care of. Eventually, he would wake, and she had every intention of being there.

**March 20****th****, 1941**

The world came back all at once; though it wasn't that he hadn't felt anything for all that time. To the contrary, Edward had been in constant pain for as long as he could feasibly remember. It was the smell of antiseptic, bleach, and the feel of cool, soft clean sheets that caught him first. If this was a hallucination, it was a really good one!

His eyes cracked open, blurry and unfocused, as he tried to determine his whereabouts, and he found himself looking up at…. himself? Golden hair atop a black and red blur. He opened his mouth to ask how that had happened, but all that came out what a soft moaning sound.

"Dad!" That voice… he knew that voice, but for several agonizing moments, he couldn't put a name to it. "Daddy? Can you hear me?"

"Sara?" It took all of his effort to push that word past his lips. He closed his eyes again.

"Yes!" The voice was eager, responding. "Daddy it's me. Come here, quickly," she called to someone. "He's waking up!"

Really, all Ed wanted was to go back to sleep. He hurt. His head throbbed, and everything else ached as well.

"Get up, Chief," said a much more recently familiar tone. "You owe me a lot of drinks for this one."

"Havoc?" Ed pried his eyes open again, blinking in the dim light of…a hospital tent? As the world came into focus, he realized that he really wasn't hallucinating. There was gray-green canvas above his head, and a real bed beneath him. Not a really cushy one, but much more comfortable and forgiving than stone floors. Everything smelled clean, except for the light scent of desert that he guessed was coming from outside.

More importantly his mind, tired as he was, wasn't fogged up and producing strange images he couldn't explain. The octopuses were gone.

He couldn't see Jean Havoc but he was, without a doubt, looking up into the face of his daughter. What was she doing here? Where were Winry and the boys? How had he gotten out of that cell? A million questions exploded into his head. "Where am I?" was all that came out.

"Heaven," Havoc retorted snidely from just off to the side and Sara scowled before looking back down at Ed.

"You're at Base Command," she explained softly. "General Armstrong led a reconnaissance mission to bring you both back. The Xing army is retreating; something about a new Emperor being named."

"So…I didn't dream that." Had Lin really come into his cell then? Ed wasn't even entirely sure when he had been hallucinating or not for …he had no idea how long it had been either. Time had stopped having meaning long ago.

"Nope," Havoc replied. Apparently, he was in the next bed over. "I was there for that one too, and I know they weren't sticking_ me _with needles."

It was so unreal, especially with Sara sitting there, in _his_ coat, with his hair, explaining to him what was going on as if she sat on a battlefield and talked tactics every day. "That's just weird."

"What is?" Sara asked, frowning.

At her expression, Ed felt the smallest of smiles creep to his lips. "Looking at myself." He hoped what he meant was clear; he was having trouble expressing himself fully. Havoc had been right; the cavalry 'had' arrived, even if they had taken their sweet time about it. Well, it didn't matter. It was over.

Sara blinked and then laughed. "You know, I almost forgot," she smiled. "Oh! Mom will be here in a few days. I don't think she's happy with either of us right now."

"Probably not," Ed agreed. Somewhere, even if Winry made it up, there was probably now a clause in their marriage vows about being accidentally held captive as a prisoner of war, and how that was completely not approved! He found himself looking forward to her wrath.

"Good to see you conscious," Breda chuckled, coming into view. Ed wanted to sit up and look at people, but while he could feel his own remaining limbs, they twitched, not entirely cooperating. At that point, Ed stopped trying. Fortunately Breda stopped where he could see him. The other man looked tired, stressed, and a hair leaner than the last time Ed had seen him.

"Nice to be…anywhere but there," Ed countered, having to stop to breathe more than he liked. "Thanks…for not leaving us."

"Thank me when you're tucked up at home with that honey of a blonde who's on her way out here to yell at all of us," Breda chuckled, though Ed could hear the relief of tension as he did so. They had all been worried about him. Frankly, Ed had been worried about himself! At the end there he had been pretty sure he was done for.

"If I survive….her wrath," Ed managed the joke, then closed his eyes again. "Hell, I'm beat."

"After what you went through," Breda snorted. "You look like someone 'ransacked' hell, Ed. Get some sleep. No one's going anywhere for a while."

"Good." Ed felt a small, soft hand on his shoulder as he found himself drifting again. He tensed briefly on instinct then relaxed. It was just Sara. Nothing to be afraid of. However he had gotten that lucky, once more he had dodged death, and that feeling of a gentle hand, not one reaching out to torment him, followed him into his first real sleep in months.

**March 25****th****, 1941**

By the time Winry arrived on the Eastern Front, Ed had been more or less properly conscious for a couple of days. His system was clear of all the junk he'd been stuck with near the end after some nasty withdrawal systems as the last of the drugs completely wore off and his body got used to functioning without them again. It was a miserable experience, but not nearly as bad as the drugs themselves had been in Ed's opinion! They had messed with his head, and he hated that more than anything else. While he was still sleeping most of the time, he was improving.

The first thing to come back, perhaps not surprisingly, was his appetite! When he'd woken up the second time there had been hot stew waiting, and the first bite had brought his long staunched hunger boiling to the surface. He'd growled when the doctor made him wait a while after the first bowl, to make sure his stomach could handle it after being so long deprived of a properly sized meal.

After two days of trying to monitor Ed's food intake however the doctor almost gave up, and Ed got as much as he could stuff down and 'keep' down. He had never been so ravenous in his life! And that was saying something. After months of meager and lousy Xing rations, even Amestrian Mess cooking tasted like the finest gourmet restaurants in Central! The only limit on food then was the fact that out here, everything was rationed out.

Not that he could even eat on his own at first; embarrassing as that was. But Sara was there, and when she wasn't helping fix things while he was asleep, she was at Ed's side when he was awake, talking with him, helping him eat, and making sure he was as comfortable as he could be reasonably made.

Ed was glad when the doctor didn't suggest any kind of painkillers. He was nervous about the idea of anything with a needle coming near him; and jumpier than ever before about something that might make him hallucinate again. Most of the really strong painkillers they had were still likely to cause hallucinations, and could be addictive. Neither idea was appealing. Besides, now that there weren't fresh injuries being inflicted daily, he found he could handle the pain and discomfort.

"Boy, I'll be glad to get my arm and leg back," he sighed as Sara sat next to him while he ate that afternoon. He was tired of being almost entirely bed ridden and unable to move around on his own.

"Mom's bringing new ones," Sara assured him. "Or well, I haven't talked to her myself, but they told her yours were gone."

Ed chuckled weakly. Winry always had another model she was working on, so he was probably getting an upgrade anyway! "Yeah, you're right. That means she'll have them. Though I hope she doesn't freak out when she sees the monster," he joked, referring to himself. Sara had shown him his reflection in a small mirror that morning, and even Ed had to admit he looked like a roadmap of burns and scars and gashes that were pretty horrendous. His face wasn't too bad aside from all the bruising that was, fortunately, turning quickly to the mottled browns and yellows of healing skin. At least he still had his hair!

It was what lay under the blankets that Ed didn't want to think about too much. He remembered far too well the knives and the needles; the hot metal and the scalding hot salt water that had caused him to writhe in agony. It was still too immediate to feel like a bad dream; yet too surreal to fit the rest of the world; an odd disjointing that bothered him. Really though, Ed just didn't want to dwell too much on what remained of his eviscerated pride until it had healed up some. He'd already taken an objective look during one of the brief periods where someone would help him up to relieve himself. That still hurt a lot, and it wasn't pretty.

Well, a lot of things weren't pretty. As long as it still functioned he'd count himself lucky! The damage seemed to be just external, so he'd live with it. The skin would heal with time. When he was fully conscious Ed was lucid and, aside from the pain, he felt in a surprisingly good mood most of the time. Having Sara there helped of course. It was when he tried to sleep that Ed had problems. More than once, he was plagued by nightmares: vivid ones, taking him right back into his captivity. Sometimes they were of the tent being stormed and his being recaptured. He often woke sweating, and twice he'd taken a violent swing at someone who tried to wake him – his lack of limbs the only thing that kept him from having the leverage to get up and connect.

He felt ashamed the second time, when he opened his eyes and it was Sara, looking at him, startled but unafraid; she had blocked his swing easily. She asked if he wanted to talk about it, but he declined.

"What can we do about this?" Ed had asked the field doctor when he was looking him over – again – just that morning. "I feel like an idiot, falling apart over bad dreams but when I come up swinging at my own daughter…"

"I expected them," the doctor replied calmly. "They're perfectly normal reactions; your mind trying to deal with everything you've experienced. Naturally, the things you fear most will come out prominently and, right now, those are some pretty nasty and powerful experiences. You need time to heal, to cope with them; that's the best cure."

"Time," Ed snorted. "I don't have much, doc, unless you intend to leave me limbless till I 'get over it.'" If he came up swinging at someone when he could really move, he wasn't sure he wouldn't hurt someone before he became conscious that he wasn't dreaming. His head was really messed up, and it was driving him up the wall!

He didn't tell the doctor how badly his heart pounded every time the man came near him; or anyone walked by with a syringe and needle to give some other patient. They had given him an antibiotic when he had first gotten here, but he only knew that because they had told him when he regained consciousness for the second time.

"I could give you a sedative," the doctor suggested, but his face told Ed how unlikely he thought Ed was to agree to such a thing. "It might suppress the dreams enough to help you get more peaceful rest."

More needles, Ed grimaced. No, he didn't like the idea at all. "I'll think about it."

Still, even that event couldn't darken Ed's mood too much. Winry was arriving today, and he wanted to see her so badly it hurt! "Is there any more," he asked Sara, who was putting down the now empty plate off of which he'd been eating. Ed had managed to feed himself a little today, which was one step past invalid that he was glad to take!

"Not for now," Sara shook her head, and laughed. "That was thirds, Dad! And the Mess has to start working on dinner too you know."

His stomach said it was full, but his body screamed for sustenance anyway; it was a bizarre dichotomy. The doctor had assured him that was normal too after a period of near starvation. It would a while for his body to settle into a more normal mode. Ed sighed though, and relaxed into the pillows that propped him up, just glad that he actually had real food again! "Fine," he chuckled. "Just make sure you get enough next time okay?" he teased Sara. It was hard to think of her as his 'little' girl now, as he had watched her the last few days, taking care of him, and hearing stories from a variety of sources about the work she had been doing – and her use of alchemy in defense of the Base. He knew the intent look on her face now, the accepting of knowledge of an element of the world that in the past had been stories. Except for the color of her eyes, he really did feel a lot like he was looking back in time at himself!

Sara laughed and stuck her tongue out at him. "You don't want to get sick do you?" she chided. "I'll see if I can get the cooks to let me find you something else in a little while."

"No fair, General," Havoc teased from the next bed. "Hogging the prettiest girl in the place and getting special treatment." While Havoc had been up and about a little more than Ed had, he knew his friend was still in pretty lousy condition too. No matter when the army was actually pulled back, Ed and Havoc would be transported home like living cargo as soon as they were well enough to make the trip.

"Get your own, Havoc," Ed retorted, grinning. Sara looked a little embarrassed by Havoc's comment, but she hid it well from the rest of the room. Other soldiers were chuckling.

"I've been trying!" Havoc lamented. "But do you know how hard it is to pick up a girl in this place? And they still won't let me have a cigarette."

"Not in a hospital tent," one of the nurses sniffed as she walked by.

"Girls don't like kissing men who stink, Colonel," Sara startled Ed by commenting matter-of-factly as she gathered up Ed's plates and stood to take them away. It reminded him a little of something Riza might have said; that same matter-of-fact patience with a hint of annoyance. His daughter had done a lot of growing up recently.

"And what would you know about kissing?" Havoc retorted, sounding more amused than anything.

Sara jumped slightly, eyes wide, her back still to Havoc. Ed watched the tips of her ears turn pink and almost smirked himself. She recovered quickly though, turning slowly and giving Havoc a withering look. "It's not polite to ask a girl those kinds of questions either," she replied before walking out, head high.

Ed managed not to laugh at Havoc's bemused expression. "Ouch! Are you sure that's your daughter, Ed?" the other man asked.

Ed nodded, smiling. "Absolutely."

Winry arrived a couple of hours later. Ed was dozing, digesting the 'snack' Sara had brought back from the kitchens. Apparently she really was a favorite around here, and had taken advantage of that fact. Though Ed couldn't help but wonder whose rations were being skimmed off of specifically. His eyes came open the minute he heard the whispers of a familiar voice at the door, then footsteps coming down to his bed, which was in the middle of the tent, several beds down from the entrance.

The moment Winry came into view, he couldn't stop himself from involuntarily trying to sit up and reach for her. He grimaced, falling back against the pillows after only a couple of inches. Hell. He hated being stuck in bed like this! Still, his eyes never left Winry's, which were wide and looking mildly horrified.

Ed flashed his teeth in his best smile, aware of how odd that had to look given his rag-tag appearance. "Hello, beautiful."

That was enough. Winry dropped the auto-mail case on her shoulder, tears erupting as she came forward, hugging him close- though with surprising gentleness given her state, still it was an awkward angle. She sobbed into his shoulder.

Ed blushed a little. Well, that was awkward in public! Not that he really cared. The scent of Winry's hair filled his nostrils, and her warm, soft presence was like a breath of air after being held underwater too long. In truth, his own eyes were damp too; with the joy and relief that they were together. Still, he felt guilt at the pain he had obviously caused her.

In a couple of minutes, Winry's crying eased and she sat up, wiped her eyes, and sighed. "You're such an idiot," she said softly. "Do you have any idea how worried I've been?"

Ed smiled; his own reply just as soft. "Yeah, I've got a pretty good idea."

"Mom!" Sara hurried into the tent and she and Winry embraced in a tight hug.

"Sara," Winry squeezed her; then she sat back and her expression changed from one of relief to anger. "You are in so much trouble young lady! When we get home you are so grounded!"

Sara glared back. "Mom! You've got to be kidding me!"

And they were off; arguing vigorously back and forth about the whole situation.

Ed closed his eyes, still drowsy. As he drifted off, the sounds of the voices of the two girls he cared about most was music to his ears.


End file.
